My son’s white. I’m not. But love doesn’t stop to check skin tone — it simply chooses, claims, and stays. 💛
I met Connor when he was just five years old, sitting alone on the steps of the youth center with a beat-up basketball in his lap. A tiny kid with big eyes and no place to fit. He’d already been moved from foster home to foster home, learning too early what instability feels like.I sat beside him and asked the simplest question I could think of:
“Wanna play?”
He nodded.
That moment — that tiny nod — changed both our lives. 🌟
We trained anywhere we could. A crooked rim bolted to a streetlight. A ball patched with tape and hope. Every morning before I headed to the plant 🌅, every weekend whether it rained, burned, or froze 🌧️❄️☀️ — we were out there. Dribbling. Shooting. Dreaming.
Connor grew fast. Taller than me before he hit high school, then taller than everyone.
By senior year he was 6’5”, team captain, all-state, the kid every scout wanted to meet.
I’d come to games straight from long shifts — hands greasy, boots muddy, uniform still smelling of metal and sweat 👷‍♂️.
But I showed up.
Every. Single. Time.
I was the loudest voice in the crowd, yelling encouragement like my life depended on it. 📣🔥
Then came draft night.
The room was packed with suits and cameras. I stood in the back, just wanting to witness the moment without taking up space.
When Connor’s name was called, he didn’t look at the stage.
He didn’t look at the cameras.He looked for me. 👀
And when he found me — when he pointed, grinned, and lifted his chin like, “We did it”… — something inside me broke open. 😭✨
That look held twenty years of 5 a.m. practices.
Twenty years of scraped knees, late-night talks, discipline, hope, and unconditional love.
It held the truth that family isn’t DNA — it’s devotion.
And in that crowded room, with my dirty work boots and my heart shaking in my chest, I realized something simple and pure:
He may not have come from my blood…
but he came from my soul.

🏀❤️🌈