Mom Adds Four Children To Her Family When Her Best Friend Dies Of Cancer
When a mom’s best friend dies, she expands her family… by four.
You’re on the phone talking to your best friend since 5th grade and she asks if you’ll adopt her four daughters if she loses her battle with brain cancer. What do you do?
When Liz Diamond posed this question to Laura Ruffino the answer was a simple, “Okay.”
According to Ruffino’s husband, Rico, the choice was simple. “We didn’t really talk about the decision to take in the girls,” he said in an interview with People,. “I know that sounds crazy. But I just came out and said [that if] anything happened to Liz, I’d be honored to take her kids.”
Image via GoFundMe
And take the girls in they did. Liz Diamond passed away on April 4, 2015, and the next day her grieving daughters moved in with the Ruffino’s. They are currently the girls’ legal guardian and are in the process of adopting them.
Not only did they selflessly expand their family of four to a family of eight – the Ruffino’s have two biological daughters of their own – they also do everything they can to keep Diamond’s spirit alive. Her picture is above the fireplace and her paintings are hung around the house and they even have a “universe phone” where they “talk” to their mom when they miss her. The girls know their mother can’t talk back, but it brings them great comfort all the same.
Are you crying yet?!
This woman did exactly what any of us would want to do for our best friend if we were faced with the same terrible decision. But she actually did it. She didn’t just talk about it. This wasn’t some hypothetical conversation. This was real. And she really, really followed through.
She gave up her home as she knew it. She gave up her life as she knew it. She took on the extra costs of clothes, food, and water. She took on the task of saving for four more college funds. She took on four more people to give her love and attention to and she did it all with a simple “okay.”
She sacrificed all that she had, all of her comforts, all of her securities in the life she’d been living, and turned it up and down and sideways in order to do the right thing for her dying friend. That is the sign of true friendship. That is unequivocal love personified.
That is the most beautiful thing in the world.
