Three years after a car accident took both of my children, Grace and Noah, the silence in my house became unbearable. Their rooms remained almost untouched, filled with a sweatshirt, library books, and memories I could not move. I did not want to replace them, because nobody could. I simply realized that grief had not taken away my ability to love or my desire to give a child a permanent home.
At a foster care event, I noticed a fir sixteen-year-old boy sitting alone with a book. When a little girl spilled crayons, he immediately helped gather them and crawled under a table for the last blue one. His caseworker, Denise, warned me that Luke was complicated and had already lived with ten families. He had never been violent, harmed children, or used drugs. The label reminded me of the way teachers once called Noah difficult when grief made him quiet.
