So earlier today on this blog, I wrote about a sibling group that stayed together, but in retrospect I think they should have been separated - at least temporarily.

There are times when siblings should be separated for the safety of the other children, or when a great deal of time and attention is needed for one child over another.


My blogger friend Heidi wrote about one such sibling group that had been separated. There were five siblings in all, four of which had been adopted by two families. The oldest brother couldn’t be around his younger siblings for safety reasons and so at ten years old, he went to a group home to live.

By all accounts this is a sad story. The one adoptive mom would take the siblings to visit this older brother, but was obviously saddened by leaving the eldest brother behind when they left to go home. In Heidi’s words from the article:

Sue told me that as she returned Kevin to the group home, he sobbed as she led him to the front door. “What could I say? I just hugged him. I’ve been praying for a family for Kevin from the beginning, but it is becoming harder and harder to sound convincing or encouraging. Is it loving to hold out hope where very little exists?”

What would you do? The adoptive mom couldn’t take this child home. It wasn’t safe, yet she was trying to maintain a connection for the siblings.

Luckily, in this case, there is a happy ending.

This eldest brother has been adopted.

In her second article, an unexpected follow up story, Heidi reports:

It seems Jake and Natasha met Kevin at a “kinship festival,” when they were considering whether to adopt a child. Kevin came up to them and cracked a joke, and it was love at first sight. “We decided then and there that the moment we took him into our home, it would be for keeps – no looking back,” said Jake, a Baptist minister. They have two grown children, and it is an adjustment having a younger child in the home again. But you have only to look at Kevin’s glowing face to know that it is a match truly made in heaven.

Both of these articles are heartwarming, and give us hope that a forever family can be found for all in foster homes.

Heidi has chronicled the story in her two articles. She writes for CatholicMom.com and although I’m not Catholic, I enjoy her writing about parenting, fostering and adopting. Heidi is a foster adopt mom herself and understands the issues.

The initial article is here and the update is here.