I did not win.

Last summer I received two issues of Real Simple magazine as part of a free trial offer. Despite not actually knowing what this magazine was about, I excitedly thumbed through the pages upon receiving my first issue in the mail. I quickly came across a page that read the following:

"TELL US ABOUT THE TIME THAT YOU FIRST UNDERSTOOD THE MEANING OF LOVE.

Maybe you were a child, witnessing a generous act by your father or mother. Maybe the lesson came later, as you grappled with the challenges of being a friend, a spouse, or a parent yourself. Whatever made you understand love—and yourself—better, tell us about it."

Immediately I was taken back to a night that occurred many years ago and KNEW that I had to type that experience out on my computer and send it off to the editors of that magazine.

The silver lining in sharing my story was that the winner of the essay contest would receive $3,000, round-trip tickets for two to NYC (including hotel accommodations for two nights, tickets to a Broadway play & lunch with Real Simple editors) AND the essay would be published in Real Simple. Obviously, it was a long shot--& to save you any anticipation on the outcome, take note of the title of this post—but I felt that my story was going to be as good as anybody else's.

Since I know that I didn't win and I put in the effort in to write out my story with high hopes that it would be published in a magazine for zillions of people to read, I am going to settle for sharing it with you today—on Valentine's Day. It is, after all, a day to celebrate love. And this retelling of my experience is a little different than your typical lovey-dovey story. I suppose you could say it's not so regular.

     I did not realize while growing up how much of an impact my parents' decision to open our home to foster children would have on me. We fed, clothed, housed and loved nearly 60 children over a nine year time frame, all beginning a few weeks before my sixth birthday. Although I did not consider growing up in a family who provided foster care anything out of the ordinary, I seemed to possess a deep appreciation for the endless love, adoration, encouragement and support that my parents had for my siblings and me. Do not get me wrong, my family was far from perfect. At the time, I had five brothers who caused their fair share of mischief; a head-strong, hard-working yet amazingly tender, loving Dad; and a Mom who, to this day, would walk to the edge of the earth and back for her children, or a complete stranger for that matter. With those family dynamics we had our fair share of disagreements, arguments and fights, but at the end of the day we were a family; a unit who supported one another and could usually be relied upon.

     We were often times on call for emergency foster care situations, so that meant my mom would drop whatever it was that she was doing and meet a social worker and the child/children at any hour of the day or night to bring them to our home for an indefinite period of time. I did not know anybody else who played “Superhero” in this sense, and would “rescue” abused, neglected and scared children. I was usually able to accompany my mom on these adventures if she felt the situation was safe enough. Gladly and excitedly, I would tag along despite having very little idea for what was in store.

     Each child came with a unique, heart-breaking story, which often arose questions in my little-girl mind of how grown-ups could inflict upon their little one(s)-their own flesh and blood-such miserable, tragic life circumstances. I always asked my mom to share with me the reason why each child was living with us, and she would explain it to me in a kid-friendly way. Perhaps it had been because the child had been abandoned at the County Building, his/her mother was a drug addict or he/she had been physically abused and left with scars/burns/broken bones.

     It was not until I was about 10 years old that we became the temporary home for a little boy named Joey (name has been changed for the protection of this child), and I asked my mom why it was that he was my newest foster brother. Despite Joey's story being put into little-kid terms so I could understand, my mom explained to me the most appalling, sickening reason that I had ever heard as to why a child had been removed from his home situation. Joey had been sexually abused by his mother and that struck me to my core. Never in my 10 years of existence had I heard of something so unimaginable happening to an innocent child.

     It was shortly after Joey had moved in with my family and I had learned of his sad story that I was awoken one stormy night to his tremendous sobs, for what I figured had everything to do with being frightened from the loud bangs of thunder, flashes of lightening and pounding rain. I crawled into his bottom bunk, wrapped my arm around his trembling little body and comforted him in the best way that I knew how to do: I told him that it was only a storm and reassured him that everything was okay. It was the next words that came from his 3-year-old little mouth that still gives me goosebumps when I close my eyes and hear him whisper them. “I just want my Mommy,” he said, and it was with that simple sentence that I learned an enormous life lesson which I still hold very close to my heart.

     Despite the unspeakable acts that his mother had done to him, despite the fact that his mother had left her own son with emotional scars that, I can only imagine, would still affect him to this day, and despite the fact that it had gotten so bad that he was one of the many children in the foster care system, that little boy loved his mother so much, so unconditionally, so irrevocably that he would have given anything to have her comfort him during that storm.

     We are sometimes hurt the deepest by the people who mean the most to us, and unfortunately, as in Joey's situation, those circumstances are completely out of our control. After experiencing that night with him, I decided that I, too, would follow in my parents' footsteps and someday open my home to foster children and/or adopt a child in need, as they also did when choosing to adopt my youngest brother and sister. Now being married and 26 years old, I am hopeful to know that dream is within reach.

     Thank you, mom and dad, for instilling in me an appreciation, which runs through my veins and pounds in my heart, of how truly invaluable loved ones are and how to love unconditionally. And Joey, wherever you may be, thank you for teaching me a precious lesson about love and the human spirit that I will forever carry in my heart.