I Raised My Late Girlfriend’s Daughter as My Own – Ten Years Later, She Says She Has to Go Back to Her Real Dad for a Heart-Wrenching Reason

Ten years after I adopted my late girlfriend’s daughter, Grace, she stopped me on Thanksgiving morning while I was cooking. She was shaking, eyes red, and whispered words that felt like the ground giving way beneath me:
“Dad… I’m going to my real father. He promised me something.”

Ten years earlier, I’d made a promise to Laura as she was dying—to take care of her baby. Grace’s biological father had vanished before she was born, so I stepped into that space completely. I raised her, loved her, adopted her. She called me her “forever dad,” and that was the greatest title I ever earned.

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