There is a kind of love that asks you to give yourself completely to something that is not yet given to you. Foster parents know this love. It is patient in a way most love does not have to be. It is brave in a way most love never has to be asked to be. And it does not make headlines — it just keeps showing up in the dark, in the kitchen, at three in the morning, holding a small person and refusing to let the uncertainty in the room become the uncertainty in the embrace.
That is the love Lane Igoudin has lived.
In 2004, Lane and his husband Jonathan entered the Los Angeles foster care system — the largest in the country — hoping to give a home to a child who needed one. What followed was years of legal uncertainty, courtroom battles, and a day Lane still calls curbside delivery, when a newborn's arrival hung on a phone call that would not come. His memoir, A Family, Maybe, tells that story without polish and without sentimentality, because he believes some stories do not belong only to the person who lived them.
In this episode, Lane and I talk about what it really means to parent through uncertainty, the moment that almost broke him, what he has learned about loving children whose future is decided by strangers on a timeline you do not control, and why he believes the foster system as it stands does not serve the kids it claims to protect.
He will tell you he is not a hero. I will let you decide that for yourself.
Find Lane and his book A Family, Maybe at laneigoudin.com.
Now go make a story worth telling. Goodnight.
Spirit Talk Show – Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups
Hosted by Doyle
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