Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Artist of the Week: Doing the Right Thing

This week is a little bit different, but hey it's my blog and my rules.

The artist this week is my Mother in Law aka Grandma.

The kids adore her and always have a good time when they are with her. She plays endless games of Monopoly and is great audience for whatever jokes they have. She and her husband are mostly retired now. She was a lawyer and he was a judge.

Today I'm recognizing her for something she did a long time ago when she was a practicing lawyer.

This past weekend we stopped at Grandma and Grandpa's on the way home from Vermont. It's a convenient lay over for us and breaks up the long slog home. While there I read and article in the NY Times about a camp for foster kids that has a special siblings session. Sadly, not all siblings stay together in the foster system, but for one week they can be reunited. It was an extremely touching article.

My mother in law also thought it was good and pointed it out to me. We talked about it for a bit and then she brought up a story she had never told me before. It was, in her words and I must agree, her proudest moment as a lawyer.

One of the many things she did as a lawyer was to represent children in court. It was often times a very heartbreaking job. In this particular case, however, there was some joy. A child, horribly abused by his parents, was going to adopted by his foster family. Meanwhile my MIL was assigned another case. After meeting the child and reviewing the case she realized this second child was the other child's younger sibling. She was able to bring the children together (and they looked just like each other) and convince the foster parents to adopt both.

This happened a long time ago, but to this day it still brings tears to my MIL's eyes.

No comments: