Two years after my wife Lauren and our six-year-old son Caleb were killed by a drunk driver, I was still alive—but barely. I moved through life on autopilot. Work. Couch. Takeout. Silence. The house felt wrong without them. Their things stayed where they’d left them, like they m

One sleepless night, scrolling through Facebook, I saw a post: four siblings—ages 3, 5, 7, and 9—had lost both parents in a car accident. If no family took them together, they would be separated.

I couldn’t stop staring at their photo. I knew what it meant to lose your whole world in one moment. I couldn’t imagine losing your siblings too.

The next morning, I called Child Services.

“I’ll take all four,” I said.

Months of paperwork, interviews, and home inspections followed. When I first met them—Owen, Tessa, Cole, and Ruby—they sat pressed together, wary and protective. “All of us?” Tessa asked.

“All of you,” I promised.

The early days were messy. There were tears, anger, and testing boundaries. “You’re not my real dad,” Cole once yelled.

“I know,” I said. “But I’m still here.”

Slowly, walls lowered. Ruby fell asleep on my chest. Tessa wrote my last name after hers. One night, Owen whispered, “Goodnight, Dad,” and my heart nearly broke all over again.

A year later, we learned their biological parents had left a small house and one clear wish in their will: never separate the children.

We didn’t move right away. We didn’t need to.

What mattered was that we were together.

I lost my wife and son. I will always miss them. But now there are four voices shouting “Dad!” when I walk in the door.

And somehow, in saving them, they saved me too.

ight walk back in.