A stepdaughter saw her beloved stepfather cry for the first time in 23 years of knowing him when she presented him with a sweet adoption request.
David Stick, 57, couldn’t hold back his emotion when he opened a gift from Katlyn Brown, 26, from Madisonville, Kentucky, which contained a clipboard of papers.
As David struggled to read the print, an excited Katlyn couldn’t resist bursting out, “Will you legally become my dad?” bringing her stepdad to tears.
Katlyn – who admitted she had not seen her stepdad cry before this moment – had never viewed David as anything other than her real father, after he started dating her mom when she was just a toddler and never missed a beat for the important moments in her life.
Katlyn knew she wanted David to adopt her for more than a decade, and so, now being an adult who can make that decision, met with a friend who works in a lawyer’s office to get the paperwork drawn up.
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Those forms were then attached to a clipboard, along with a photo of Katlyn and David on her wedding day, which she wrapped up and presented to her stepdad on Christmas Day.
After David had joked about struggling to get through the wrapping paper and then needing the right glasses to read the right message, Katlyn could not hold in her excitement anymore and simply blurted out her sweet request, then saying, “They’re adoption papers.”
David choked up, which Katlyn said she never expected, and then headed in for a long, emotional hug.
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Katlyn said: “I’ve never seen my father cry – he has always been a rock, through everything in life it truly warmed my heart to see him become emotional about receiving those papers.
“Papers that really don’t change anything, adoption or not he is my father, but I know it meant the world to him that I wanted to take the steps to legally make him my father in the eyes of the law.
“The response has been extremely positive – many family members, friends, and strangers have expressed their congratulations to us, or expressed how moved they were by the video.”