Thirteen years ago, my life changed when a three-year-old girl named Avery entered the ER where I was working my first year as a doctor. She had lost her parents that night, and her world had shifted in an instant. When the nurses tried to take her to another room, she clung to me and pleaded softly for me not to leave. Something in that moment rooted me to her. Social services had no family listed for her and expected she would enter temporary foster care, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch her be taken away by more unfamiliar faces. What began as a single night of helping her feel safe turned into weeks of paperwork, home visits, and learning how to care for a child who had experienced profound loss. When she called me “Dad” for the first time, it felt like a quiet, fragile beginning of something real. Six months later, I officially adopted her. Continue reading…
