My Foster Son Never Spoke a Single Word – Until the Judge Asked Him One Question

“I’m not most families, Estella,” I told her.

I didn’t need more noise. I needed someone who understood silence and who wanted to be loved through it all.

After three miscarriages and a husband who said he “couldn’t keep hoping for something that never came,” I’d learned to live with absence.

When he left, he took the last of my expectation with him.

But not my capacity for love. That stayed with me.

And eventually, it asked for somewhere to go.

I didn’t wake up one day with the answer. It was slower than that.

I started by volunteering at the library’s story hour, then packing food hampers for the shelter. I told myself I was just keeping busy, but one afternoon, I found myself holding a little boy’s jacket he’d left behind, and I didn’t want to let go.

That was the moment I knew.

I filed the paperwork a week later. The training classes took time.

Continue reading…