After a drunk driver took my husband and both of my children, I stood trembling in the hospital parking lot and called my parents, barely able to keep the phone in my hand. My father listened in silence, then said, “It’s Jessica’s birthday today. We can’t come.”

photo of Emma and Noah from their last Christmas.

On the back, I wrote:

For Sophia, so she knows they existed.

Then I sealed the envelope.

Two years have passed since then.

The Bennett Family Foundation has now helped more than two thousand families. My chosen family is made of the people who showed up: Tom and his wife, Mrs. Patterson, Michael’s parents,continue reading …