Save kids... Love kids...

My attire for court varies, depending on the weather and what I have set that day, but it’s never a t-shirt, blue jeans, and tennis shoes, for obvious reasons. Another reason, which might be a little less overtly obvious, but is definitely deeply felt, is the fact that a suit or court clothes are a bit like a uniform for me. I just feel different when I am wearing them. More important in a way. More serious. More mature. Like I at least look like I know what the heck I am doing, even if I don’t always feel like it.

But today I’m wearing a t-shirt, blue jeans and tennis shoes. Because it’s Friday and because during the latter part of March and April, if we don’t have court, all the people in the CPS office wear our child abuse prevention awareness t-shirts on Fridays.  So that’s what I wore today because I had no court scheduled or anything else that would take me out of my office where I had planned to spend the day on paperwork.

And then I got a call from one of the DA’s investigators. To tell me that the mother, on the case of a 12 year old child who was starved to death back in October, was entering a plea of guilty today. And I wasn’t going to miss seeing that if I had been wearing a bathing suit. 

So off to court I went.

But I was uncomfortable there, wearing the clothes I don’t ever wear to court. I felt bad that it might seem that I didn’t have the proper respect for the court proceedings, or that I didn’t respect the gravity of what was happening.

But I totally did, regardless of what I had on. As I sat there with my hands trembling, unable to take my eyes off of what was happening before me, I totally respected the gravity of what was happening.

A mother, one of the people a child should most be able to trust and depend on to take care of him, plead guilty to not providing that child enough food to sustain his life. She plead guilty to failing to get appropriate and needed medical care for him. She stood there, and answered questions calmly, and politely, and with no obvious emotion. As I sat there with my hands shaking so hard I had to hold them together to keep them still.

I totally respected the gravity of what was happening in the court this day.

I wonder if she did.

I wonder if she had any understanding not only of what she now faces, but of the effect on her children. Not just the precious child who lost his life, but the surviving children who very likely saw and experienced things that we will never know. Things that they will spend the rest of their lives reliving, learning to deal with, and attempting to heal from. 

And so, as I reflect on the unexpected trip to court today, and my discomfort at my wardrobe, I realize that what I had on was actually quite appropriate for the day.

Save kids… Love kids…

Because this job never has been, and never will be, limited to what happens in the courtroom on the days I spend in court wearing my suit.

It is so much more.

And as long as I do this work, I hope I never forget the gravity of what that means. 

In the hospital room standing over the bed of a dying child, in the courtroom where justice occurs, and in any place that matters.

No matter where I am, no matter what I am wearing.