My Foster Parents Loved Me. And I Hated Them For It.

I needed the stability they provided, but I resented the hole I was supposed to fill in their lives.

Illustrations by Sam Dean Lynn | Edited by Lilly Dancyger

Life wasn’t always chaotic. Mom was a radiant, bright-eyed empath and nursing assistant. Dad was the brooding type, a savant guitarist, very Mediterranean. We embodied that perfectly normal sort of suburban life — the spoils at Christmas; we’d dressed up when our grandparents came to visit; Catholic sermons; long, languid days spent swimming in the sea.