Two years ago, a drunk driver killed my husband and two children, and my life stopped. The house that once echoed with laughter became unbearably silent. I woke up every day, breathing but not living, just moving through rooms filled with memories and aching emptiness. I didn’t answer calls, avoided people, and existed in a world that no longer felt like mine.

One October day, while sitting at a bus stop trying to escape my quiet house, I saw a flyer for a Halloween costume drive for children in need. Something inside me stirred. At home, I opened dusty boxes in the attic and found my kids’ old Halloween costumes — the bumblebee suit my daughter loved, my son’s firefighter outfit. Instead of letting them sit forgotten, I donated them and organized more donations, filling my car with costumes for kids who’d never had one.

At the shelter’s Halloween party, I watched children run around in the costumes we collected. Then a little girl appeared — wearing my daughter’s bumblebee costume. She ran up and hugged me, thanking me. Then she asked the question that cracked me open: “Maybe you could be my mom?” Her name was Mia. She’d been abandoned and had nobody. Something inside me shifted. That night, for the first time in years, I felt the faintest spark of purpose.

I applied to adopt her, terrified but determined. Six weeks later, she ran into my arms as the social worker said she was officially mine. Now Mia is eight — loud, messy, joyful, obsessed with bees — and she brought life back into my home and heart. I will always grieve my first family, but grief didn’t take away my ability to love. That tiny girl in a bumblebee costume reminded me: life doesn’t replace what we lose — it teaches us our hearts can grow again.