That was why, one rainy Tuesday afternoon, I walked into a foster care agency and told a woman named Denise that I wanted to talk about becoming a parent again.
Denise didn’t smile immediately.
Instead, she looked at me carefully.
“I’m going to ask you something difficult,” she said. “Are you trying to replace your children?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t think anyone could replace them.”
She studied me for a moment.
Then she nodded.
“Good answer.”
The process took months.
There were training sessions, interviews, background checks, home visits, paperwork, and conversations about childhood trauma that sometimes left me sitting in my car afterward, crying before I could drive home.
I learned that loving a child wasn’t enough.
You also had to understand what that child had survived.
You had to be prepared for fear, anger, distrust, silence, and behaviors that often made sense only after you understood where they came from.
Eventually, Denise invited me to an agency event where prospective parents could meet some of the children.
Most of the younger kids were playing.
There were toys scattered across the room, crayons on tables, and children talking over one another.
Then I noticed a teenage boy sitting alone beside a window.
He had a paperback open on his knees.
He wasn’t trying to get anyone’s attention.
He wasn’t talking.
He simply sat there reading.
A little girl nearby accidentally knocked over a box of crayons.
Several crayons rolled across the floor.
The boy immediately put his book down.
He crouched beside her and started gathering them.
One blue crayon had rolled underneath a table.
He crawled underneath it, reached as far as he could, and pulled it out.
Then he handed the crayon back to the little girl, returned to his chair, and opened his book again.
I nodded toward him.
“Who’s that?”
Denise followed my gaze.
The moment she realized which boy I was asking about, her expression changed.
“Luke.”
“How old is he?”
“Sixteen.”
“Can I meet him?”
She hesitated.
