You know who your real friends are, not by who's there when things are going well, but by who's there when you're at your lowest. Stephanie Culley is one of those friends, those real friends who don't shy away from getting their hands dirty when you need them. When Culley's friend Beth Laitkep became ill with breast cancer a second time, Culley knew she had to really reconnect with her.
Laitkep is a single mother of six children, and while she was battling terminal cancer, the father of her youngest children left her. She knew that nothing short of a miracle would enable her to live much longer — she also knew that her six children would be without a parent. That's when she asked Culley the question that had been on her mind.
“‘Will you take my babies? Will you do this for me?'” Stephanie recalled to the Washington Post. “I told her, 'Yes, I would do it in a heartbeat.'”
This would leave Culley and her husband Donnie to raise nine children — no small task. The couple welcomed the challenge, but there was only one potential hiccup: did the children want that?
“We took the kids down to the hospital for her to talk to them about it,” Culley said. “We said, ‘If you do not get a miracle for Mommy, who do you want?’ They all pointed to me. That melted my heart.”
It was a done deal. Laitkep passed away knowing her children would be in good hands. Culley and her husband currently have temporary custody of the children, but will be returning to court this month to make it permanent. The family has raised a whopping $44,196 on their GoFundMe page.
“I feel like our life is complete now. Those six kids were the six links we were missing from our lives," Culley says.
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Image Credit: Twitter / Caren Pinto
