Our decision to bring Cristina into our family didn't happen overnight. From the beginning of our marriage, we've tried to keep our home's door open to others—friends, young people, whoever needed a place. So the idea of fostering a handicapped child grew gradually, with the support of our whole family. When you open your door, the entire household welcomes the newcomer, including the children you already have. In fact, without our own children, we likely wouldn't have taken in Cristina or anyone else.
In the autumn of 2006, when we were asked to foster Cristina—a seven-year-old girl with Down syndrome—we understood immediately that this placement would make her our daughter. The moment we heard the proposal, our minds flooded with the same questions and fears we'd heard from many parents at Fede e Luce: What will her future look like after we're gone? How will our own children accept her, now that they're young and later as adults? Will we have the strength to parent all of them? Do we accept that she will always be "small"? Will we have the patience to navigate the system around her—the schools, therapists, social workers, health services, courts, neurologists?
We prayed, then we asked advice from some parents at Fede e Luce, who opened their hearts and shared their own experiences, encouraging us to move forward. After a period of getting to know each other, Cristina came to live with us. She's been here ever since.
What can we say now, six years later? Sometimes it's hard to respect her pace and her way of doing things when we're caught up in our own schedules. But her presence reminds us—and forces us—to rethink how we live: efficient, competitive, closed off from others, governed by appearances and price tags. She flips our values upside down. It's good to be with others; the more the better. Time flows without clocks. No one gets judged. Everyone deserves a smile. That's not nothing.
A few months ago, we learned informally that the foster care arrangement might become adoption. This new possibility stirred up questions we thought we'd settled, and we realized the original ones are still very much alive—even as we try to answer them every day in the midst of our family's constant changes.
Our hearts said yes to this new possibility immediately, but then we had to think it through with our heads. What did our biological children feel? At 15, 13, and 8, they deserved a say. The shift from "for a few years" to "forever" raised real questions and fears for some of them—and as parents, we have to take that seriously, not crush our children under a responsibility we've imposed on them.
The choice is ours as parents, but we also have to own what we've done: we brought openness and welcome into this family from the start, and that means we have a responsibility to walk with our biological children through these questions as they unfold—not to resolve them all at once, but day by day. We can't expect neat answers because life keeps changing. But for a sister? It's worth it.
Giacomo and Francesca, 2012