After calling themselves mother and daughter for decades, two Texas women finally made it official.
On Tuesday, Muriel Clayton, 92, adopted Mary Smith, 76, at a Dallas courthouse.
"As I have gotten older, it's kind of like my life is a beautiful jigsaw puzzle, but there was a piece missing," Clayton told TODAY.com. "And that piece was Mary. And I got her in my life puzzle, that's what I wanted to do, and that's what I did."
The two are actually cousins, according to the Today.com story. Smith's father and Clayton's mother were brother and sister. Smith's father died of a heart attack. Since her mother suffered from a mental illness, Smith was left without a parental figure. Clayton took on that role.
When Clayton took in Smith, an only child, she had already had two children of her own.
The two had talked about making their relationship official for the longest time, but never did. Then last month, on the day before Mother's Day, Clayton asked to adopt Smith.
"I said, 'I've thought about really adopting you for real for a long time, how do you feel about that? And her face just lit up beautifully and she said that is the sweetest thing I've ever heard," Clayton explained.
Smith's biological mother passed away several years ago.