A touching story about a Virginia mom honoring her friend’s dying wish to adopt her six children.
Stephanie Culley of Alton, Virginia met Beth Laitkep years ago in high school. The two grew distant after Beth relocated, but they rekindled their friendship after Beth moved back to Virginia. When Beth came back from Texas, she also brought her six children.
For two years, Beth underwent chemotherapy treatments at Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, but on April 13th, 2016, doctors concluded that the disease had spread to Beth’s brain, spinal cord and nervous system.
Beth decided to stop treatments and unfortunately, died from breast cancer two months later at the age of 39. As Beth’s health was deteriorating, she made one last request. A request for her friend, Stephanie Culley, to adopt her six children and keep them together.
The request was one that would change the Culley family forever…
She said, ‘I know you will do this for me, but can you raise nine kids? Can you take my babies, all of them and keep them together?'” Culley recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t know. I have to pray about this, I have to talk to my husband about this. We discussed it as a family and my kids were the first to say yes. They had gotten really close with [Beth’s] kids. My husband was like a deer in headlights, but he knew that this was what we had to do.”
After filing the paperwork to officially adopt the children, the family had to wait for a judge’s approval.
In July, the Culley family gained full custody of Beth’s six children, Will, 15, Selena, 14, Jaxson, 12, Dallas, 10, Lily, 5, and Ace, 2. Along with the couple’s three children, Cole, 10, Hayden, 6 and Calen, 2, they now have nine all together.
“We started dancing as soon as the judge made his ruling,” Culley says, “It was like winning the Super Bowl for us. It was an amazing day yesterday.”
Good things happen to good people. A few months ago, the family of 11 visited the Rachel Ray show and got a huge surprise. The family received $90,000 dollars to help send their kids to college, but that wasn’t all…
On top of the money, the family also got new furniture for their entire home. The incredible news brought tears to the mother’s eyes.
It’s great to hear good things happening to good people. It really touches my heart knowing that someone went beyond what was asked of them just to keep her friend’s children together. Bless the Culley family’s heart.
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