Part 1: The Request
Discover more
Adopted
Social Sciences
families
The morning the doctor said David had only weeks left, our home seemed to lose all sound.
For fifteen years, we had built a steady marriage and raised two children. I believed I knew him completely. But after the diagnosis, David became distant, staring at the ceiling with a fear deeper than his illness.
Marriage
Whenever I asked what was wrong, he said he was tired.
Three weeks into hospice, he reached beneath his pillow and handed me an old photograph. A solemn sixteen-year-old girl stared back at me.
“Her name is Grace,” he said. “I need you to adopt her before I die.”
The request froze me.
I demanded to know who she was. David only asked me to trust him and said she had no one else.
“Is she your daughter?”
He closed his eyes as a tear slid down his cheek.
