Man Promises to Adopt Dying Brother’s Kids, Learns He Should First Earn Twice as Much — Story of the Day

Joey had promised to take care of his dying brother’s sons, but fate had other plans. He walked out of the group home where the kids were placed and returned a year later to a shocking sight. Would he end up faltering on that final promise?

Two sweet brothers ran across dried cornfields in their childhood… When one would stumble and fall, the other would stop to lift him up. When one was wounded, the other would cry… When one had no shoes, the other would take his off, and the boys would walk around with one foot bare.

And when they grew up struggling to survive in this harsh world, they always saved the last bite of their food for each other…

Kevin and Joey were always like that. Inseparable, wild, kind, and uninhibited.

And no matter what they lost in life, they always found each other.

Kevin was the elder one, a man who had loved a beautiful woman and lost her after the birth of their children. He was a doting father to his boys. And Joey was a pampering uncle to them.

Joey had nothing. No beautiful woman, no job, no ambition, or a sense of purpose in life. To him, all of life was one giant mistake, and nothing really mattered in the end except his brother and his “two little monsters,” as he liked to call them.

One fateful night, when Kevin met with an accident and was breathing his last in an ambulance while holding his brother’s trembling hands, Joey made a tearful promise to him.

“Joey, my sons…will you t-take c-care of th–”

“I will, Kev. I promise I will adopt them and raise them as my own boys. They will know the little joys you and I grew up with and the big ones we always dreamed of, brother. But I don’t know if I will be any good—”

“You already are, Joey. You already are. My boys are s-so lucky…”

As Joey opened the last fistful of mud over the coffin, he could still feel the final tightened grip around his palm before Kevin passed. That last promise kept replaying in his head.

Joey went to the group home where child services had taken his brother’s kids, Keith and Marty.

He couldn’t wait to bring the boys home and console their little hearts. But it wasn’t going to be that simple, as Joey found out at the shelter.

“What do you mean I can’t adopt them? I’m their uncle!” Joey was confused and angry.

“Sir,” a woman who worked at the group home said, “how much are you currently earning every month? Enough to afford the boys’ food and medications?”

Joey was calculating how he would lie to the woman, but he stood no chance. “Do you have money for their upcoming school year? How about a house with a room for them and a fence that’ll help protect them?...