Dear Diary:

[elleng]

We approached the sooty gray stone structure of the 19th Police Precinct station house on the Upper East Side, apprehensive and overwhelmed. The seemingly insurmountable paperwork necessary to qualify as adoptive parents now required that my husband and I be fingerprinted in order to pass a background check.

The desk sergeant, imposing and tall on the elevated podium, gruffly instructed us to step forward and state our business. We drew near, swallowed hard and uttered our request. “Take a seat,” he responded.

Moments later, a captain, taller still, loomed above and beckoned us. We walked around the raised platform and met him in relative privacy on the side. He repeated our request, and we nodded. I squeezed my husband’s hand and felt my knees beginning to knock.

He looked us over carefully for what seemed like an eternity. Then, to our utmost surprise, the captain stepped down from the platform and continued: “My wife and I struggled for a long while, and we just adopted a child last year. It is life’s greatest gift. And so, it is my pleasure to do this for you. Won’t you please give me your hands so that I can fingerprint them?”

Which we did, once I was able to stop crying.

Thank you to the unnamed captain; please know that we think of you often. And recently, my second child, who is now 8, was told of your kindness as we walked hand-in-hand past the sooty gray station house. Linda Yarden

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/nyregion/12diary.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper