Sandy My Name

Sandy came to us through the foster system, speaking in grunts and gestures and pulling out chunks of her own hair in tantrums. As our time with her was extended, she started to calm down--at least a little. Despite her difficulties, my husband and I and our two young children had come to love her earnest brown eyes, her endearing sayings, and her efforts to make sense of the world. “Yay,” she cried four years later, “I get to be adopted, because you want to keep me!” Yes, we wanted to keep...