When I met Tara she was prettier than me, younger than me, and in most ways far more disenfranchised than me.  In fact there was just one area of our briefly conjoined Venn diagram connectedness where the power was ostensibly hers and definitely not mine: she was the real mom to a baby I loved very much.  In that (I had been told by at least 2 lawyers) she had the legal edge.  She should have been able to designate a capable guardian for her children.  The law favored the biological mother.  And at that time, at the end of 1998, it gave no credence to the foster mother.

A fact I can accept now, after most of the unbearable losing of Tara’s beautiful child has scarred over.

What I can’t accept is losing Tara 

because…