Nobody expected to find a survivor when Officer Lewis and his team were dispatched to investigate a fatal car crash. But there was one – a four-year-old boy who was sobbing uncontrollably in the backseat of the car.
It was around 3 p.m. when Officer Martin Lewis got a call that a massive car crash had occurred at a Manhattan intersection.
Locals who witnessed the accident blamed the car’s driver for driving recklessly despite the red signal light, and based on the extent of the damage, they were confident that no one could have survived the crash.
The car was nearly smashed to pieces, and smoke was coming from the bonnet. Nobody approached the vehicle because they feared it would burst soon, but they did call 911.
When Officer Lewis and his team arrived at the scene, they broke the car’s door and escorted a couple out of the car from the front seats. Regrettably, they were no longer alive.
Then they went for the backseat, and a sobbing sound made them stop in their tracks. Officer Lewis peered through the window and saw a boy inside, crouched on the backseat, partially bleeding from the head and crying.
“There’s a boy here! He’s still alive! Notify the paramedics!” he yelled to his partner Ben and smashed open the door to let the boy out. Aside from his head, the boy had injuries to his right arm and parts of his face.
Officer Lewis carried the boy in his arms to his police car and applied a handkerchief to his head wound to stop blood flow. However, the boy wouldn’t stop crying, so Officer Lewis began talking to him to comfort him.
“It’s all right, dear,” he said, patting his head gently. “You’re fine. The doctors will arrive soon, and we will be able to treat you. You don’t need to be concerned!”
Officer Lewis’ words, however, did not make the boy feel any better. He kept crying, shouting “Mom – Mommy!” Daddy!”
Officer Lewis and Ben exchanged a quick glance, both suspecting that the couple in the front seat were the boy’s parents and that he was now an orphan.
Officer Lewis sighed and inquired, “Where are your mother and father, kid? Are they at home?”
“No!” the youngster shook his head, wiping his runny nose. “They are in the car. Please help them!”
Officer Lewis’ eyes welled up at this point. He, too, was an orphan, and he feared that if the boy had no relatives, he would grow up in an orphanage. He was well aware that orphanages were not the best places to be raised and that it was challenging to become a good person later on in life.
Fortunately, he had met Kathy after leaving the orphanage. They married soon after they started dating and built their dream home together. When they could not have children, they adopted a little girl named Julia.
However, Kathy wanted to have another child, so they decided to adopt again. But when they went for adoption, they fell in love with a set of newborn triplets and ended up adopting three kids instead of one.
As Officer Lewis wondered about the boy’s fate, his thoughts were interrupted by the paramedics that had arrived on the scene. They took the boy for first aid, but Officer Lewis couldn’t take his gaze away from him as he saw him walk away.
That night, he couldn’t sleep. His mind was constantly occupied by the little boy’s thoughts. He was safe with the police, and his relatives were being tracked, but he was concerned that if nobody agreed to take the boy in, he would end up in an orphanage. So he decided to talk to Kathy about the boy’s adoption over breakfast the following morning.
“Honey,” he said. “I know it might feel strange to you but yesterday I met this little boy during an investigation, and I – I just can’t stop thinking about him. His parents are dead, and nobody has appeared as the boy’s relative yet. They’re trying to talk to the child, but he’s still traumatized from the accident and isn’t opening up.”
“Oh, that’s terrible,” Kathy said as she placed a toast on his plate. “How old is the child?”
“I don’t think he’s more than four years old, honey,” Officer Lewis said. “I was thinking about adopting him. What do you think?”
“Well, Martin,” Kathy hesitated. “I know you feel attached to him, but it’s too soon, honey. What if his family wants him back? Let’s wait for a while and then decide. In any case, if you want us to become his parents, I would never say no.”
“Thank you, honey,” Officer Lewis replied, content that the boy would at the very least have a loving home.
After nearly a week, no relatives came forward to claim the little boy whose name was Arthur. Even the cops hadn’t been able to track any relatives down. Officer Lewis and Kathy decided to adopt him at this point. However, when they started the process, Ben informed them that Arthur’s relatives had been finally tracked down somewhere in New York.
It turned out they were the boy’s aunt and uncle, and they wanted to look after him. Officer Lewis and Kathy, on the other hand, had fallen in love with Arthur’s innocence and decided to discuss Arthur’s adoption with them.
To their surprise, Arthur’s relatives seemed to be interested in the boy because they wanted the house his parents had left him. “We are not giving you the boy at any cost!” they’d said. “He is ours, and the house his parents left him is ours too!”
So Officer Lewis told them they could keep the house if they wanted, but he and his wife were very interested in adopting their nephew. To his surprise, the couple accepted the offer without hesitation and gladly exchanged Arthur for the house. At this point, Officer Lewis was overjoyed because he had saved Arthur from a life of misery with his greedy relatives.
When the adoption was finalized, Arthur arrived at Officer Lewis and Kathy’s house. There he started to become curious about his parents. Because he was only four and unable to comprehend what had happened to them, neither the police nor Kathy and Officer Lewis told him the whole story.
Instead, they wrote him letters every month, pretending to be his parents, and decided to tell him the truth when he was older. And they did that when Arthur became a teenager. The boy struggled to accept the truth initially but eventually understood it.
Years later, when Arthur graduated from university and began working, he received a letter from his aunt and uncle. In the letter, they’d declared him as the heir to everything they had because they didn’t have any children.
Arthur had no idea he even had an aunt and uncle. He called his parents and asked them if the letter made any sense. That’s when he discovered his parents’ house had been taken over by his aunt and uncle, but they hadn’t been so interested in taking him in.
Arthur was saddened to learn that his relatives did not accept him, so he refused the inheritance. He did, however, reclaim his parents’ home and relocate there. He met a wonderful woman named Carrie a few years after this event, and they married soon after dating.
They welcomed two lovely daughters but later decided to adopt three more children because Arthur knew there was nothing better than being raised in a large family full of love and warmth. Officer Lewis and his wife were delighted to be proud grandparents to the beautiful children.
What can we learn from this story?
Family is formed through love, not necessarily through blood. Martin Lewis and Kathy’s acceptance of little Arthur into the family is a beautiful example of this.
Our fate is one thing we cannot change. Arthur was destined to grow up in a loving family, and that happened even though he lost his parents at a young age.
