My sister’s death shattered something inside me. One moment she was laughing on the phone with me, and the next I was being told she was gone—just like that. She had been a single mother, doing everything she could to raise her little girl on her own.
And suddenly, her seven-year-old daughter had no one left in the world but me. I begged my husband to adopt her. I held his hands, cried, pleaded.But all he said was, “We’re not an orphanage! I’m not feeding a stranger!”Those words carved themselves into my memory like scars. Despite all the love I had for my niece, despite the fact that she was family, I couldn’t change his mind.
