As we navigate through life, many of us grow to understand the importance of family.

Family, we learn, doesn’t have to be by blood relation. We can class anyone who loves and supports us as family – and we share a bond with these people that remains throughout life.

It’s more than possible for people who don’t have any blood-related family to find a new family whose love for them knows no ends.

Katelynn Martinez of Fort Collins, Colorado, known as Katie for short, has her own story of family to share.

The young girl wasn’t close to her grandparents, and her dad was out working a lot. Her mom was around, but she had lots on her plate as a quasi-single parent. Speaking of her familial relationship in a post for Humans of New York, she said:

“It was just the three of us. And dad was a truck driver so he was gone most of the time. It could be a lot of stress. My mom was almost like a single mother. On my third birthday we moved to a small house outside of Denver.”

Katie loved her parents, but she thought she had room in her heart for some extra love. And that’s when she met her neighbors.

“Next door there lived an older couple named Arlene and Bill,” her post continued. “They started talking to me through the fence. My first memory is Arlene handing me strawberries from her garden. It was a wonderful connection.”

Katie’s relationship with her neighbors blossomed quickly. It wasn’t long before she saw them as family, almost like her grandparents. She hoped that they might feel the same about her, so one day, she plucked up the courage to ask them a very important question:

“Will you guys be my grandparents?”

Arlene and Bill were overwhelmed with joy. The couple had no children of their own, so they felt blessed to take on the role of Katie’s grandparents – something they never thought they’d be able to do.

Katie might have taken a light-hearted approach to her new relationship with her “grandparents”, but Arlene and Bill had a different mindset. They went out of their way to create an adoption certificate, hanging it up in their living room so that everyone knew that Katie was officially their new granddaughter!

We love the signature on the adoption certificate the most, which reads: “Mr. U. R. Special”.

Katie talked about how she saw Arlene and Bill’s home as a “refuge”. She hung out with Bill, who taught her to “drive everything”, and was “always fixing stuff”. The kindly grandfather figure would also sit down for a cup of tea and a catch-up with his adopted granddaughter. According to Katie, Arlene “loved crafts”, and the pair would often sit together, adding tiny sequins to her craft work.

While spending so much time with Katie, Bill and Arlene made sure to show their support for all of her endeavours. They even encouraged her to go to college and paid for her to attend.

Katie wrote of this kind gesture, saying: “They told me they’d been putting away money since the day I adopted them.”

It was only when Katie became an adult that she learned more about Bill and Arlene’s past lives. The pair had grown up poor, and Arlene had battled with alcoholism. This was ultimately why the couple had never had children.

This was a wake-up call to Katie, and she realized that no-one’s life is ever as perfect as it first seems. She also learned just how precious she was to her adopted grandparents.

She finished her post on a sad note, writing: “My grandmother passed away in 2013. It was two days before our adoption anniversary. My grandfather gave her eulogy. And at the end, he said: ‘Arlene leaves behind her husband Bill. And the greatest joy of her life– her granddaughter Katie.’”

To read Katie’s full emotional story, check out the post below.

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-Cx_SmHSpX/?utm_source=ig_embed

Source: Instagram/ humansofny, Inspiremore