I raised my fiancé’s 10 children after he left us; 30 years later, his lawyer showed up at my door and said, “He asked me to give you this envelope today.”

faces around the kitchen table, I knew I couldn’t let go of them.

At the civil registry, a social worker warned me that ten children were too many for one person. Even so, I signed the guardianship papers. The adoptions took years, but in my heart, that day they became mine.

The first few years almost destroyed me. She worked continue reading …