The judge rises, and the bailiff bellows, "All rise." We rise and file out of the courtroom.

In the hallway outside, the parents huddle with their attorneys. The father is still crying silently, and the mother looks vacant and numb. The two little girls, who were perfectly quiet in the courtroom, giggle and hug each other, glad to be free of the silence.

The "team," those of us who work with or represent Thomas, form our own huddle. Voices shaky, with tear-stained cheeks, we somberly congratulate one another on our success.

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Twenty miles away, in a nursing home for severely ill children, Thomas lies in a softly lighted room, in a steel crib, hooked to four different machines that monitor his bodily functions. He is sedated and quiet, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. The only noises are the regular whir of his feeding machine and an occasional beep from his heart monitor.

He is done with foster care -- his medical needs are too urgent and his health too delicate to risk keeping him at home. Yet his foster mother still shows up, every day, to hold him and sing to him. She keeps his clothes and blankets in a white painted chest of drawers next to his crib, and leaves a portable stereo for him so the nurses can play music to calm him.

The nurses touch him only when wearing rubber gloves, because he has a contagious virus that could be deadly to the other children in the nursing home. The dehydration caused by the virus, combined with his kidney failure, has wreaked havoc on his blood chemistry, which is why he was finally admitted here.

His foster mother and I take turns visiting, and hold him glove-free, despite the nurses' warnings, because he seems comforted by touch -- his heart rate slows and his breathing becomes more even. I pick him up and he wails in pain, but then he quiets and settles into me as I sink into a nearby chair. He likes to be held upright with his legs tucked under him, head on my chest. The tubes and monitor wires poke out from under his T-shirt and diaper, and wend their way across the floor to their respective machines.

I feel at once incredibly grateful and unbearably sad. I am grateful to the judge, and to the parents, and to whatever forces in the universe persuaded them not to fight this after all -- to let Thomas go when his body can't hold on anymore. Yet the sadness is an overwhelming, unspeakable, pit-of-the-stomach ache that leaves me trembling, and almost afraid to hold Thomas, because each time might be the last. Everything seems, suddenly, even more tenuous, and he seems more fragile, his bottom lip sucking in and out as he sleeps, his tiny chubby fingers curled around mine, the sweet baby smell of his hair and his cheeks.

Though I hated the thought, there was comfort in the fact that, before the DNR order, if Thomas died, we might not lose him entirely -- the life support machines would keep him with us. I feel like I now understand why people leave their comatose relatives on life support for 20 years.

But I force myself to remember that it's not about those of us who love Thomas -- it's about him, his suffering and his body's ability to keep working. So I will keep visiting, and saying goodbye, and saying prayers for his comfort and my strength.

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