I describe myself as a husband, father of five, and wearer of fedoras. That line captures my priorities and a bit of my quirkiness (or weirdness, as my teenagers would say). There was a time when that line read “father of five (six),” but that time has ended. This story is about that ending.

We have an adopted son from China. I don’t talk about that much because I don’t think about him that way. He’s my son, and when I look at him, I see him the same way I see my other kids. He’s not different or set apart; he’s just ours. Our adopted son came home when he was two, and he left behind a foster family with a foster brother, Tong.

We were fortunate to remain in touch with his foster family. As a part of that, we got regular updates on Tong. Our family traveled to China in 2019 and met Tong in person. We discovered on that trip that Tong had been removed from his foster home and put back in the orphanage. So, when we got back from our trip, we started the process to adopt him and give him a home here.

Tong has some disabilities, and we were going to have (gulp) six kids, so we had to make some lifestyle changes to get ready. We bought a Suburban so we could all fit in one car. We bought a new house with a bedroom on the main floor and a small step from the garage into the main floor to accommodate a child who needed a walker. Other family members made changes, too, to prepare to have more time to spend with a new sibling and help him adjust.

By March 2020, we were ready. We hosted fundraisers and spent all the funds raised with the adoption agency. We had finished moving, setting up his bedroom (probably the best-decorated room in the house to this day), getting the new car, etc. We expected to travel to China to bring Tong home within the next month or two.

Then COVID shut down everything. Like every other family, we were stuck in our homes, with our lives and our adoption on hold. But we held on to hope. Every Christmas, my wife buys the family new Christmas pajamas and a Christmas ornament. And every year, she has bought pajamas and an ornament for Tong, too, so we wouldn’t feel left out when he got home.

Since COVID, the pile of pajamas and box of ornaments has grown, but over time, it became clear that our adoption might never happen. We’ve been waiting to adopt Tong for five years now. That’s five years of unworn PJs, five years of looking at an empty chair at the dinner table, five years of wondering how he is doing on the other side of the world with no parents to look after him.

As I’m writing this, a portrait of our kids is on the wall above me. In the photo, my youngest is sitting in the lap of my oldest. My second oldest is smiling big, holding a framed photo of Tong in his lap so that Tong could be part of the family portrait.

Last week we got the terrible news. Tong won’t be coming home, ever. China has stopped all foreign adoptions. It breaks my heart. The kids are having a tough time. And it has me asking, what now? What do we do with that portrait on the wall? What do we do with his framed photo, that empty chair, the stack of PJs, or the box of Christmas ornaments that have never been touched? How do we go from planning for our sixth, for five years, to enjoying our five?

I don’t have an answer; maybe I never will.

What I do know is this: It won’t be ok. This is not a part of any divine plan. Sometimes, terrible things happen—scratch that—often terrible things happen. Tong’s story is sad but not unique. Thousands of families all over the US are processing this news, struggling and searching for what normal looks like.

It’s never going to be ok, and that’s ok. We don’t have to put a happy face on tragedy. Instead, we have to process it, learn from it, grow, and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

There always comes a point where suffering diminishes, life carries on, and seeds of joy begin to sprout. It may not be today or tomorrow, but someday.

Our family’s life, our story, will go on. It must. There will be happy times ahead and sad ones. Tong’s life will go on as well, just on a different path now, also with happy and sad times. Maybe someday those paths will cross again, maybe not. And that’s ok.