I just returned from a trial for termination of parental rights.  The child is a one year old girl.  Her father has been absent most of her life.  Her mother is recovering from addiction to drugs.

My client is the child’s maternal grandmother.  We hope that the state will allow the grandmother to adopt her grandchild.  To help that happen, the mother voluntarily relinquished her parental rights.

Nothing can be as emotional as a mother relinquishing her parental rights to her child.  Whatever mistakes she previously made, today the mother was brave and selfless in placing the needs of her child ahead of her own.  When she returned from presenting her relinquishment, she fell crying into the arms of her child’s grandmother.