When my first love, Charlotte, died at 35, she left behind nine daughters with no one to care for them.<\/p>\n
I adopted every one of them. People thought I was out of my mind, but I spent the next twenty years raising them as my own.<\/p>\n
Then, on the anniversary of Charlotte’s death, my daughters arrived with a secret they’d kept their whole lives.<\/p>\n
They handed me a stack of letters Charlotte had written but never mailed. The last one was addressed to me.<\/p>\n
In it, she confessed she’d never stopped loving me\u2014and revealed the truth she’d been forced to hide.<\/p>\n
After one night together in high school, she became pregnant. Her parents took her away before she could tell me.<\/p>\n
“Our daughter has your heart,” the letter read.<\/p>\n
I looked at Mia and realised the daughter I’d loved and raised all these years was my own flesh and blood.<\/p>\n
But in that moment, only one thing mattered.<\/p>\n
“You’re all my daughters,” I told them. “And nothing will ever change that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When my first love, Charlotte, died at 35, she left behind nine daughters with no one to care for them. I adopted every one of them. People thought I was out of my mind, but I spent the next twenty years raising them as my own. Then, on the anniversary of Charlotte’s death, my daughters…<\/p>\n