A couple in their 50s said they felt compelled to adopt all seven children who were left orphaned after their parents tragically died in a car crash.
53-year-old Garry Willis and 50-year-old Pam from California have five children and had been fostering kids for years.
But after seeing a Facebook post about seven children whose parents died in a horrific accident, she instantly felt that she was “meant to be their mother.”
In an interview with TODAY, Pam said that she could not stop staring at the children’s faces.
“I can’t explain it – I just knew I was supposed to be their mom,” she expressed. The post she found online was a Facebook ad searching for a home for 4-year-old Xander, 5-year-old Leo, 7-year-old Aubriella, 8-year-old Anthony, 9-year-old Aleecia, 13-year-old Ruby, and 15-year-old Adelino.
Pam said that she and her husband Gary felt “it was what God wanted us to do.”
Pam said the kids were easiest to connect with, saying: “I think they didn’t quite trust that we were real. Like maybe we were going to go away. I think it’s so hard to trust when so much has been taken from your life. Ruby didn’t know how to be a kid. She had to be a mother figure at a very young age.”
In an Instagram post, the couple recalled the first time she saw the children on Facebook and shared how they all moved into their home.
“One January day, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed when a news story post hit my heard like the biggest ton of bricks,” she wrote.
“’Seven Siblings in Need of Forever Home’ it said. In that instant, their sweet smiling faces jumped off of the screen and into my heart. I tagged my husband in the post. I thought about them all day,” she continued.
“That evening I asked my husband if he’d seen the post. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We should adopt them.’ My heart stopped. ‘We should,’ I said…
“We knew deep deep inside that this mission was being placed before us. If not us, then who? They had been in foster care for a year since their parents had been killed in the car accident that they all had miraculously survived.
“Who would keep them all together? Who would have the space for them? Who would have time, and the love, and the patience for their trauma? The answer was clear… we would.”
One person commented: “This has made my day reading this! Beautiful people and an amazing story, they lost their previous parents, so sad but gained a new family, I’m in awe. We too are foster parents and have adopted some of our children, but it takes very special people to take on a whole new family of seven.”
Another wrote: “Oh my goodness. How can I ‘help’. Do you need anything at all? We will send it all.”
A third added: “You and your husband are an inspiration. Thank you for sharing your story. What a beautiful family.”
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Replaced!