This man fostered this little girl for years, but she told the court something unbelievable at the adoption hearing. Will lifted two-year-old Kiora out of the tub and dried her off with a towel. She beamed at him, but his response was an exasperated sigh. If it wasn’t him who bathed her, she caused an uproar. She only wanted Will to bathe her; no one else.
Will told her that she must quickly learn to do it herself or let her older siblings help her; he couldn’t be the one doing it for her all the time. At this, Kiora’s bottom lip jutted out, and her eyes turned watery. In a quaking voice, she asked if she was bothering him. Her eyes had become so dewy that he couldn’t find it in himself to deny whatever she wanted. Will kissed her forehead and told her that she would always be his little princess, so she could never bother him. Hearing his words, Kiora brightened up.
A half hour later, Kiora, with her four siblings, gathered at the dining table to have breakfast. It was a school day, and they needed to hurry up so that they could get to school on time. Will’s wife, Julie, served everybody’s cereal and fruits. She spoonfed the youngest of them, KJ, who was only one year old. In the middle, she heard her phone ringing from the other room and got up to answer it. In her absence, KJ started playing with his food, flicking some away and shoving bits into his mouth.
His older sister, Mariana, warned him to stop, but he wouldn’t, so she took away the plate of cereal from his reach, and he started making a fuss. In the process, he started to choke on bits of cereal. By sheer instinct, he forced himself to repeatedly cough to free up his airways, and it worked because he threw up. Will was upstairs in his room, dressing up for work while Julie was answering an important call in another room. The two adults weren’t present, but the oldest kid among the children was 11-year-old Williams.
He wagged his finger at KJ with a stern expression, and the little boy burst into tears and looked repentant. His four older siblings had gathered around him to give him a consoling hug. When Julie returned, she was shocked because she’d been gone for only 2 minutes. Seeing 6-year-old Mariana quickly brought her up to speed on what had happened. Julie looked at the mess KJ made and then at the children. They were quiet as they watched her, afraid that she would punish them for the incident. Instead, her expression brightened, and she told them how proud she was of how they handled KJ. The children were relieved. The two oldest children, Williams and 8-year-old Truth, cleaned up the mess with Julie’s help.
Julie and her husband, Will, had been fostering the children for 2 years. The couple had begun fostering 10 years ago; they desperately wanted children around, but they’d be unable to convince their own. They had tried so hard and visited many fertility specialists, all to no avail. It had been terrible when the doctors diagnosed them with unexplained infertility because they were both fertile and had no problems. Even more terrible had been the incessant advice from every nook and cranny.
It had been during those years of searching for a child that the couple had truly understood the saying: “opinions are like roses, everybody’s got one.” All the family and friends of the couple had something to chime in that they had claimed was the ultimate solution to the couple’s problem. Some had recommended out-of-country and out-of-state specialists, swearing by them. Others had asked the couple to tow the road to holistic practices and Ayurvedic medicine.
The couple were religious, and some of those at their church had asked the couple to beg God for mercy. Their logic had been that perhaps the couple had offended God somehow, and he was withholding his blessings from them. That information had been depressing to the couple. Julie’s light-bulb moment had come when her close friend put to bed. Julie had gone to see her, and her friend had been distraught instead of joyful. This had been because Julie’s friend and her husband were working through a severe hardship in their relationship.
They had fallen out majorly to the point that their marriage was on the verge of being over. Julie’s friend had been in such a sour state of mind that her baby had been more of a burden and less of a bundle of joy to her. She had confided in Julie that she wished there was someone to temporarily pass the baby to while she sorted out the issues in her life. That statement had got Julie researching, and she discovered that it was what foster parents did.
Burning with new fire because she’d found a purpose-filled path, Julie had shared her idea with Will that they become foster parents. He’d considered many aspects of it and had agreed with her. They’d been of one mind to provide a bridge for children, a safe haven while their parents or guardians sorted out whatever their issues were.
Many years later, the couple would reminisce and wonder why they hadn’t gone straight for the choice of adopting. Julie believed that it was because it didn’t feel like she and Will were ready for such a long-term commitment. Becoming foster parents was away that helped them develop as human beings who had an increased capacity to love and care for children they didn’t give birth to.
Being foster parents had been so challenging for the couple. The training alone to qualify as foster parents had been taxing and had required all of the couple’s patience to get through. Then, once they had their first foster children, life had been a whirl. It had been through fostering that Julie had discovered that she could yell on top of her voice; she had needed to learn not to yell when she was extremely worked up.
It was also fostering that had revealed to Will that he had a penchant for completely ignoring a child when they annoyed him. In fact, he’d ignore them for their own detriment, gladly, but he’d started working on it and learned how to tactfully confront a child to address issues. Over time, the Ram couple, Julie and Will, had understood that children were seeking acceptance and love like everyone else.
They gave their best selves to each child that came under their care and went on to have a track record of fostering children who were turning out to be balanced individuals. It had been in their seventh year of fostering that Williams and Truth, two black brothers, were placed in Will and Julie’s care. The boys had been young; William was nine, while Truth was six years old. Social Services had found their home environment unfit. There had been no electricity, no running water, a dirty apartment, and uncared-for children. The boys had been taken into the foster care system at the speed of light, and the first foster home had been with the Ram couple.
When the boys had initially arrived at the Ram home, they had been squirmish and wary. As they ate their first meal, they had secretly tried to stow away some cookies and fruits. Will had stopped them, assuring them that there was more than enough to go around for other meals to come. The boys had looked at him disbelievingly, and it had taken them months to rid them of that habit. It broke Julie’s heart to think that the boys had acquired the survival skill because they’d been starving.
Another worrisome survival skill the boys had acquired was going long without bathing and changing clothes. It had happened because there had been a scarcity of water and soap in their home. They would literally stink before they either bathed or Julie forced them to. Other foster parents had rejected them because of their dirty appearance, afraid that the boys might bring in bed bugs or lice into their home. But the Ram couple had been up to the task.
It had taken them months of hard work to teach the boys clean habits. Williams and Truth had been surprised at the couple’s patience; they had expected to be returned to Social Services after a few weeks, but months down the line, they were still at the Ram home, and the couple had never threatened to let them go. Whenever they got in trouble, the boys had grown fond of the Rams and had doubled their efforts to please them.
By the time that the black brothers’ younger sister, Mariana, joined the family nearly two years later, the boys had been the ones teaching her how things were done and speaking highly of Will and Julie. Mariana had been with a different foster family, but once the Rams had discovered the boys had three younger siblings, they’d been driven to bring all of them together. They had never fostered five children at a time before, but with Williams and his siblings, it had felt natural and like the right thing to do.
Due to their commitment to bring all the children together, Kiora and KJ, the two youngest siblings, had joined the Rah family seven months after Mariana. KJ usually stuck to Julie like glue, while Kiora was attached to Will, and it showed in their day-to-day interactions. Fostering all five children was easier than the couple had expected and quite joyful.
Will lived out his dream of playing sports with the boys; one of the reasons why he wanted children, particularly boys, was to have kids to play sports with. Whenever he’d see dads with their sons, that was all he thought of, and now it was happening for him. It wasn’t just the Rams who were living out their dreams of having a house full of children, but so were the children who’d never experienced the love of parents like they did with the Rams. For this reason, they highly respected the couple and had zero tolerance for anyone who dared to bash them.
Some neighborhood children came to the older boys and told them that Will was so fat he was gross. Fuming, Williams retorted, “Yeah, my dad might be a little heavy, but he moves around the house a lot and more than your dad does. Besides, he has leg issues that keep him from exercising to lose weight.” The other kid scoffed and told Williams that he was lying. Raising a challenging eyebrow, Williams told the kid that Will often came to their bedroom to play games with him and Truth and wish them good night.
William knew for a fact that the other kid’s dad didn’t do that for him because he returned home late at night and left for work at dawn. The kid backed down after this, but not without throwing in, “Why are you even defending him so much? It’s not like he’s your real dad or anything. He’s just some white man, and you’re black.
Why do you care?” It was Truth that spoke up; he told the kid that Will and Julie were better than any real parents, and he didn’t have a right to ever talk about them disrespectfully, or they would beat him up. In another time, some other kids called Julie nosy, whereas all she did was be caring and prevent neighboring bullies from acting. Once more, the boys spoke up for her and shut down the kids.
Life was going good until suddenly, Truth fell sick when he was 8 years old. At first, the fever and cold appeared like symptoms of flu, so Will and Julie treated him with flu medication. He didn’t respond to treatment. Truth started to complain of constant tiredness and wouldn’t play sports with his dad and older brother. He lost his appetite, and when forced to eat, he would sometimes throw up. Quite alarmed, Will and Julie booked the doctor’s appointment and took Truth to see her.
The doctor was friendly and made Truth feel at ease. She closely examined him but couldn’t find anything out of place with him. She chalked up his symptoms to his body’s immunity fighting against an infection. She prescribed some vitamins and supplements he could take on a daily basis; she was certain he would be better in a few days. At first, the doctor’s prescription appeared to be working, as Truth’s appetite improved, and he started eating.
But everything escalated on one fateful evening. On that day, Truth couldn’t stay still; he scratched his body uncontrollably to the point of drawing blood, and he didn’t stop when Will and Julie demanded to know what was going on. Their faces scrunched up in worry and panic. He cried that something was moving around his body.
Truth was also experiencing severe belly ache; it was so bad that he folded himself into a fetal position to have some relief. Dots of moisture appeared on his forehead, and his entire body was damp with sweat. Will and Julie noticed the yellowing of Truth’s skin and his eyes; they recognized this for what it was: jaundice. And rushed him to the emergency room to receive prompt medical attention. The ER doctor examined Truth, and the results pointed at something horrid
. She didn’t want to needlessly agitate the Rams, so she insisted on running tests. The tests were given high priority, and a few hours later, the results came out, confirming the doctor’s worst fears. Truth had liver disease. Will and Julie grabbed each other’s hands for moral support while the doctor explained to them that the best treatment option was a liver transplant. Normally, finding an organ donor that was a match was often time-consuming and required loads of luck. To his best shot at an organ donor were his biological parents, but his father was long gone from the picture, while his mother, with her terrible drinking habits, was unqualified.
With every day that came and passed, Truth’s condition worsened. Will and Julie were scared that they might lose him; his siblings were already sobbing on a daily basis, begging their brother to get better and play with them again. What would they do if he were to die? The atmosphere at the Ram’s home became significantly moody and sorrowful. It was a dark period for the family. Three months into the search for an organ donor, Truth developed seizures and slipped into a coma. Desperate, Will and Julie asked to be tested to see if there were possible matches; they hadn’t bothered earlier because the doctor had told them that mostly Truth’s blood family relations could be match.
Miraculously, both Will and Julie could be possible donors since the match percentage was high. Without hesitation, Will made the life-changing decision to donate a portion of his liver to save Truth’s life. Unfortunately, the doctors told him that he couldn’t; his weight caused his liver to have excess fat. Will was willing to work out to lose weight, but the doctors told him that there was a time constraint. Besides, losing weight too quickly in such a short period of time would do more harm to him than good. Julie stepped up and volunteered to save her son.
She was slightly overweight and had some excess fat, but that could easily be burned off. She committed to three weeks of intensive dieting and exercise. By the end of it, her liver was in tiptop shape, and she was ready for surgery. The children didn’t stop praying the entire time that Truth and Julie were in the theater. Will didn’t have it in him to convince them to get some sleep because he was as anxious as they were. After several hours, the doctor came out and announced to them that the surgery was a success. The family breathed their collective sigh of relief.
The recovery phase was swift for Julie and Truth; it was nothing short of miraculous. Months down the line, the bond between the Ram couple and the five siblings ran deeper than ever, especially after nearly losing Truth. It gave them the courage to pursue what they’d been shying away from for years: officially adopting the siblings. Once they made the adoption move, court hearings came up. At the adoption hearing, 3-year-old Kiora told the court this: she told them that her foster father had always felt like a real dad, and she loved them with all her heart.
Her innocent, candid way of expressing her feelings for Will brought the court to tears. Kiora’s testimony solidified the judge’s decision, so it was only after a year Kior and KJ came to join their siblings in being fostered by Will and Julie, all of them were adopted by them. The adoption ruling took place at Judge Ral Winkler’s courtroom at Hamilton Country Probate Court. The judge praised the couple for contributing to society by their actions, which also encouraged more foster parents to pursue adoption. Friends, family, and teachers of the children were all present at the hearing, and they celebrated with them.
Anne Bole Williams’s former teacher admitted that the switch in Williams’ behavior and performance at school since he came into the Ram’s care was remarkable. All the siblings smiled now, and they were talkative, and the sadness in their eyes was gone forever. Julie actively got the boys into sports and into church activities. The kids all had their last names changed to Ram; Will and Julie also got a five-bedroom house to accommodate everyone.
Julie switched career paths so she could spend more time at home with her kids. They bought an SUV that accommodated all of them, and the fact that they were able to do all of this was counted as God’s blessing, supporting them for their decision. On National Adoption Day, November 20th, months after getting adopted, the children surprised their parents with a small home party, and it was beautiful. Would you be ready to adopt five siblings? What would be the most difficult? Share your thoughts in the comment section, and thanks for watching.
