The telephone rang late in the afternoon. "Hello, we have a placement for you. A young male age 12 has been in a group home for the past 6 months. He has been in foster care since he was 4 years old and in a multitude of homes due to his behavior."  It did not take me long to answer," Yes, we have room for another child. When do you want to place him?"  It was no surprise to me when she said, "In the next hour.  Can you be ready?" Our new son arrived that next hour. He was shy and unsure of himself, and not too sure that he wanted to be part of our family.

In the next few months, he was running and laughing and calling us Mom and Dad. We got him a dog and he spent hours building his dog the ugliest doghouse you ever saw. We had many ups and downs with him over the next 6 years, but in the end he graduated with honors from a technical school as a carpenter.  He has been able to put his life back together and to heal. When he turned 18 he located his birth parents and reestablished contact with them. He has decided to not go back to the kind of life that they have, but to go on and make a better life for his own family. Yes, I have my first foster-grandchild.

Click on the link above to read the rest of "A Foster Parent Story".