We’d grown accustomed to Bobby’s silence. The sweet five-year-old we’d adopted communicated through drawings and gestures, never words. Until the night of his sixth birthday party, when he blew out the candles and said something that made my blood run cold: “My real parents aren’t dead.”
What followed was a nightmare of uncovered lies. The foster home had been paid to hide that Bobby’s affluent parents had abandoned him during an illness. Meeting them was worse than we imagined – their stiff discomfort, their pathetic excuses. But in that awful moment came the most beautiful gift when Bobby turned to us and said “You’re my real mom and dad.”
His choice that day healed the wounds of our infertility struggle better than any therapy ever could. Some families are born; ours was chosen – and that makes it all the more precious.
