Custody Read Free

also working with another Little Sister. She saw me onChristmas Day, and she took me out on my birthday.” Bettina smiled at Kelly. “I hope she always will.
    “As my life changed, so did hers. She got her law degree, passed the bar exam, and began working for a law firm. She was able to get rid of that old Chevy—which by that time had a rejected sticker on it—and to buy a newer used car. She was able to move into an apartment all her own.
    “She was able to loan me money to buy my schoolbooks.
    “When all others, including my own mother, saw only a fat, ugly, impoverished, and worthless individual, Kelly MacLeod saw a human being with potential. With her help, I graduated last year from the University of Massachusetts and I have been admitted to the Suffolk Law School, where I will begin my studies this fall with the aim of becoming a paralegal.
    “As I look out at this audience, I see the faces of four other women who have been Kelly MacLeod’s Little Sisters, and who have become admirable women because of her help. Kelly MacLeod honored me through so many years with her respect and her belief in my potential. I cannot tell you how proud I am to be here today when we honor her.
    “One last thing. I know that Kelly asked me to speak today not to praise her, but to tell you all about the Big Sister program, and so I ask a few more moments of your time.”
Of course, I believe in reaching out to those who are not connected by family, Kelly thought. If Professor Hammond had not reached out to her, who knows where she might be now? Certainly not here. At a time when she was lost, he had pointed her toward her future. He had made all the difference in her life .
In her junior year at U. Mass, Kelly took Professor Hammond’s course on law and society. One day he called her into his office to tell her how impressed he was by her papers and her class participation. She had a quick and incisive mind. Had she considered a career in law?
It was when he asked the question that Kelly knew, in a flash as powerful as true love, what she wanted to do with her life .
Professor Hammond became her mentor. He helped her change her major from political science to pre-law. He suggested books she should read. He told her he’d write such a brilliant recommendation for her that no law school would turn her down .
And when her grandparents died and everything changed, he hadn’t given up on her. The assistance he offered her was so extraordinary that no one but a handful of people knew about it .
As was fitting, it had been perfectly legal .
    “Sometimes,” Bettina Florez was saying, “sometimes your own family, no matter how much they love you, just can’t help you, no matter how much they might want to. Sometimes we all need the insight, good will, and sheer hard work of strangers to take us by the hand, by the hand , to touch us, to help us see that there is a good path open to us, and to help us onto that good path. To stop us from being the worst person we ever could be, to guide us toward becoming the very best person we could possibly be. To help us dream, and to help us make those dreams come true. That’s what Big Sisters can do for their Little Sisters. That’s what Kelly MacLeod did for me.” She looked right at Kelly. “Kelly, I love you.”
    “I love you, too,” Kelly mouthed back. Today was Bettina’s triumph as much as Kelly’s.
    After the applause died down, Judge Steinberg returned to the podium. “Our next speaker,” she announced, “is a woman many of us know and have had the pleasure of working with, Daria Wittington.”
    The next speaker could not have looked more different from Bettina if she tried. Petite, blond, a symphony of caramel from her frosted pale hair to her tennis-tanned skin clad in fawn silk, Daria radiated wealth and privilege.
    “Good afternoon,” she said, in the perfectly modulated tones of one quite accustomed to public speaking. “I want to thank Kelly MacLeod for asking me to