Foster children deserve better, and I’m sure everyone agrees on that. No child should have to grow up without a family, but knowing that fate might befall some kids is heartbreaking. 13-year old Tony had a pretty unique foster child story.

The curly-haired teen was an orphan from a young age and spent the first 4 years of his childhood in a foster home.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Brq9qlnh1fB/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=e6191fb8-4b40-458b-abed-9888d0970135

He was adopted eventually, by a couple from Oklahoma. It seemed like Tony could finally live the life of a normal kid, one who had a family and a home. But as luck, or bad luck, would have it, this wasn’t forever.

At the age of 11, Tony’s adoptive parents brought him to a hospital and never came back.

The young boy was abandoned, by the very people who promised him a family of his own.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxOFZ_-BbzD/

He was back at the foster home where Jessica Ward worked.

It was on a fateful day that Peter Mutabazi, a single man with no children, came into the foster home.

He’d recently been a foster parent to a pair of young boys, who he had to say goodbye to after a couple officially adopted them. Peter had grown to love those two unnamed boys like his own sons, and saying goodbye to them was really hard on him.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwK_j8GhH7x/

The man cried and felt like something in his life was missing.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp0Yh6uh0VW/

Come the day he met Jessica Ward at the foster home, Ward spoke to him for a bit and gave him something to do. He was to watch Tony, the boy who’d been “returned” to foster care after being abandoned.

Peter had his fair share of reservations about this. Not that he didn’t trust the kid or Jessica.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw5ehdVh2wy/

In fact, it was because he didn’t trust himself.

He was scared that he’d get attached to this kid too, and have to say another painful goodbye.

Looks like Jessica Ward made the right call, asking Peter to watch Tony. The two bonded like family and Peter remembered what it was like to have someone to look after. Tony’s long-held trauma from being abandoned as a child was hard to hide, and he started asking Peter if he could call him “dad”.

https://www.instagram.com/p/By8lVXIhKxy/

The story was picked up by Good Morning America, where Peter gave more information on how he reacted to Tony’s story of abandonment at 4.

“By that time, I was crying. I thought, ‘Who would do that?’. Once I knew the parents’ rights were signed off and he had nowhere to go, I knew I had to take him.”

Well, he didn’t have to worry about getting attached and saying goodbye anymore. Now, he could take care of Tony for good. All he had to do now was sign those adoption papers.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4xzqVqhXtt/

Peter himself didn’t find the concept of childhood trauma that foreign. He ran away from his abusive household in Uganda when he was 10. Mutabazi was raised by an adoptive parent soon after, and he then found a job with a nonprofit organization. Their job is to help children living in misfortune and abuse.

Needless to say, Peter has a pretty impressive track record for looking after people.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9DQ3d1Biee/

Now, he’d get his chance to look after Tony as well. Not as a foster guardian, but as his father. Peter talked about the touching moment when Tony called him “dad” over at Love What Matters. He now shares his life as a single father with the world, over at his Instagram page.

Peter is a kind and compassionate man, and I’m sure Tony is incredibly thankful to be his son now.

Two broken people came together to make one whole, and that’s the kind of story we like to hear.

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

Source: Good Morning America, Love What Matters, @fosterdadflipper on Instagram