By Terra Avilla
I am officially at the age where I get to say “I remember when you were in high school” and somehow turn that into a personality trait. But I really do remember Katie Davis when she was in high school.
I remember Davis as the quiet-ish, still-figuring-it-out kid, and now I look at her and she is this full blown, confident, gorgeous, down to earth woman who makes me want to both cry and heckle her at the same time. That’s growth. Mine and hers.
Let me clarify one important detail before the rumor mill gets excited. Katie is engaged to the closest thing I will ever have as a son. Her fiancee is not my son and she is not my daughter. But yet She is my daughter in law without any legal paperwork, DNA, or last name overlap.
There is absolutely zero blood relation involved here and I am still claiming her. I’ve decided that’s allowed. She is mine.
My girls grow up in dugouts and gyms and on baseball fields where they are constantly surrounded by boys. Boys at practice. Boys at games. Boys at team dinners. They lovingly group Joaquin as a brother, which is amazing, but it also means their day to day life is very boy heavy.
Enter Katie. This strong, positive, beautiful, confident woman who walks into their world like, “Hey, I’m here, I love you, and yes, you can borrow my stuff.” She is exactly the kind of woman I prayed my girls would see up close.
Katie shows up. That’s her superpower. She shows up for my girls every chance she gets with Joaquin. She doesn’t just tag along because it’s convenient. She carves out the time, sits in the stands, cheers, hugs them, and actually invests in who they are becoming. She listens to them. She laughs with them. She treats them like they matter. And if you’ve ever raised daughters, you know how priceless that is.
What I love most is how down to earth she is. She could very easily be one of those people who makes everything about herself, but she doesn’t. She is the opposite of dramatic. She’s calm. She’s real. She doesn’t need a spotlight, which of course is why I am putting her in one today.
She’s the girl who will wear the cute outfit, look like she belongs in a magazine, and still be the one helping pick up gear, handing out snacks, or holding a crying kid without making it a production.
Katie is kind in all the quiet ways that actually matter. She checks in when she doesn’t have to. She remembers the little things about my girls. She offers help before anybody asks. She treats our chaos like it’s normal and somehow makes it feel a little less chaotic. She fits into our family in this way that feels so natural that sometimes I forget there isn’t a branch on the family tree with her name scribbled on it in sharpie.
Even though there is no blood relation at all, I absolutely consider her my daughter in law. She is one of the reasons I love where we live and the community we get to be part of. In a world that can be so loud and negative, we have this funny, grounded, kind, confident young woman who keeps showing up for our girls, for Joaquin, and for us. And honestly, if the only legal standing she ever gets in this family is “claimed by me,” that’s fine. I’m blessed and I’m not giving her back.
