{"id":17487,"date":"2026-04-20T11:08:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/?p=17487"},"modified":"2026-04-20T11:08:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:08:56","slug":"i-aged-out-of-foster-care-thinking-no-one-loved-me-then-i-opened-the-box-they-saved-for-my-18th-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/?p=17487","title":{"rendered":"I Aged Out of Foster Care Thinking No One Loved Me\u2014Then I Opened the Box They Saved for My 18th Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"72\" data-end=\"162\">I grew up in foster care\u201414 homes in 12 years. I learned not to get attached, not to hope.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"164\" data-end=\"228\">At 18, I aged out with nothing but paperwork\u2026 and one small box.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"230\" data-end=\"287\">Inside were letters. One for every birthday from 8 to 18.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"289\" data-end=\"386\">They were from a foster mom I lived with for just four months\u2014the one I thought had forgotten me.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"388\" data-end=\"403\">But she hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"405\" data-end=\"569\">She wrote every year, not knowing where I was, just hoping I was okay. In her last letter, she wrote: <em data-start=\"507\" data-end=\"569\">\u201cI never stopped thinking about you. You were always loved.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"571\" data-end=\"610\">I found her months later. She\u2019s 78 now.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"612\" data-end=\"685\">Now I visit her, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I belong.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"687\" data-end=\"742\"><strong data-start=\"687\" data-end=\"698\">Lesson:<\/strong> Even when life moves you on, love can stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I grew up in foster care\u201414 homes in 12 years. I learned not to get attached, not to hope. At 18, I aged out with nothing but paperwork\u2026 and one small box. Inside were letters. One for every birthday from 8 to 18. They were from a foster mom I lived with for just &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17489,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17487\/revisions\/17489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}