Years after adoption, TCC graduate celebrates more than a diploma
Walking across the stage in her cap and gown to accept her diploma from Tarrant County College on May 15, Mackenzie Sutton was a bundle of nerves. The crowd, the lights, the cameras — it was sensory overload for the wide-eyed graduate trying to bask in her special day.
Then Mackenzie saw her dad, TCC English professor David Sutton, and the distractions faded into the background. Father and daughter put their arms around each other, and a sense of peace returned.
Mackenzie described it as a feeling of warmth, and to a young woman who yearned for that feeling for almost half her life while navigating a childhood plagued by uncertainty, that embrace on stage with David was about so much more than academic achievement.
David and his ex-wife, Christina Sutton, who teaches in the Fort Worth school district, adopted Mackenzie and her brother, Lance, in 2015 when Mackenzie was 9 years old. Before that, the siblings were in foster care after being taken from their birth parents, who struggled with substance abuse.
Mackenzie and Lance lived for a while with grandparents, then with a string of foster families. At one point, a woman from North Richland Hills adopted them, but she returned the children to the foster system because, David said, she was unable to cope with Mackenzie’s fiery tantrums.
“I love her, but she was really hard to deal with when she was little,” said David.
Mackenzie said the intense emotions she felt at such a young age caused her to act out to the point where she would bite and scratch her adult caregivers. Eventually, she was transferred to a foster home for children with behavioral problems. Over time, Mackenzie has come to understand the source of those feelings.
“A lot of what my childhood was, it was severe attachment issues,” she said.
Amid the upheaval of her formative years, Mackenzie would form bonds with people — parents, grandparents, foster parents — only to have them abandon her, she said.
Mackenzie assumed the same would happen with David and Christina, so she instinctively put up walls as a defense mechanism.
Mackenzie remembers arriving at David and Christina’s home for the first time, but that core memory has less to do with the welcome she received and more to do with the cookies Christina had baked.
“She swears they weren’t burnt. But they were harder than I was used to,” Mackenzie joked, adding that she wasn’t shy about expressing her displeasure.
Over-baked cookies aside, Mackenzie and Lance entered a caring household, though Mackenzie still struggled to overcome the trauma she’d experienced. Her teenage years were especially difficult, she and David said. Often, it seemed as though Mackenzie’s defiance and anger were meant to test the limits of her new parents’ love for her.
Through it all, David said he and Christina were determined to show Mackenzie they weren’t going anywhere. They got her mental health support and loved her through her low points, but Mackenzie’s challenges were such that she had to complete her high school courses online.
She excelled as a student and finished high school early in 2024, but Mackenzie missed out on experiences like homecoming, prom and graduating with her classmates. That is one reason why her TCC graduation was so special. Mackenzie said it felt very much like a celebration of how far she’d come.
David said memories of what they’d been through as a family came rushing back to him as he watched Mackenzie that night. He wasn’t even supposed to be on the stage for graduation, but his TCC colleagues had nominated him to participate in the ceremony knowing what it would mean to him and his daughter.
With her associate degree complete, Mackenzie is going to pursue her bachelor’s degree in education, taking classes at TCC that are offered through Tarleton State University. Her goal is to become an elementary school teacher, a career Mackenzie hopes will allow her to help children who feel neglected, confused and hopeless, just like she once did.
Today, Mackenzie is in a good place. Little by little, she came to realize her adoptive parents wouldn’t stop loving her.
“I think it finally really, really clicked a couple of years ago,” she said.
When asked how it feels knowing David and Christina are with her as she enters this next phase of life, Mackenzie had the perfect comparison.
“It’s like that hug on stage,” she said of her moment with David at graduation. “It’s a warm embrace.”