10 months ago I saw a post on Facebook from the Rotary club looking for a host family for three months for an incoming high school student. I replied with a message to say our family was interested. Within a matter of a couple weeks we welcomed Dudu came into our home. He was a young 16-year-old boy from Brazil that would share a room with Reilly and over the next 9 months they would become brothers.

Together, we learned so much about one another culturally, emotionally, and through our similar family values.

Do you to Covid they requested a return early to Brazil. It was tough because I think both families wanted him to remain in New Hampshire, but these are very unknowing times in the last thing we wanted him to do was be stranded far from home.

I cannot begin to express the impact that the four kids had on one another and on our Family dynamic. Yesterday was a day I had not given much thought to, and then when it happened it was a bit like a cement block on my heart. Watching the sadness grow in the kids build over the last week was full of heartache. The goodbye is the last thing you think about when you’re opening your door to say hello. I know the girls miss him already. To say Dudu was a perfect fit in our family would sound contrived but the likeness of his interests, his faith, his ability to go with the flow, and his ripping sense of humor was a natural fit with the five of us. It just felt right all along.