- I've never had a thoughtof before all this happened

never had a thought of raising young kids

at 50 plus years old.

I mean that never had crossed my mind.

- [Announcer] Barry and Beverly Abernathy

had already raised twodaughters into their teen years

when their older daughterChassady came home from work

at a daycare center excitedabout two foster children.

- She came in one daytalking about these children

and she said, "Hey, thelittle boy," she said,

"You're just not going to believe it."

She said, "He's got a handexactly like your hand."

And she said, "It's exactly like yours."

- [Announcer] Barry was bornmissing most of his fingers

on his left hand.

Still, he's a two-timeGrammy nominated banjo player

and singer with the groupAppalachian Road Show.

Chassady knew the kids were struggling

and pleaded with her parents to help.

- I called my mom firstand I sent her a picture

of Tyler and she says,"Chassady you're crazy."

Cause I mean, I had thetendency to call her

about kids before, but I was like,

"Mama, this times different.

You gotta come meet him at least."

And she just let it go.

And I told my daddy andhe said, "You are crazy."

And I said, "Well, honey, there's no way.

I mean, we're not fosters, it takes,

months of classes andyou've got to get educated

on how to handle foster kids.

And we're not even prepared."

- [Announcer] The siblings,Tyler and Zoey, had already been

through eight different fosterhomes in the last two years.

Beverley was reluctant toget emotionally involved.

- I work in the courtsystem and I see these kinds

of things happen, ids placedin foster homes and everything,

And I was like, I willnever get that attached.

I tried to stay away fromit and keep it separate

from our life.

- I was really crying 'causeI felt so strongly about it

'cause I've met 'em andknew if they had met 'em,

they'd feel the same feeling I did.

It was just a drawingtowards them, both of 'em.

- [Announcer] A few weeks later,

Barry was leaving town for a concert.

Before driving off, hefelt prompted to stop

by the daycare center to meet the kids.

- That little boy Tyler,was the first one I seen.

He was in a class and theywere kids were out playing

and he was sitting at alittle bench table like thing

with one of his friends.

And my daughter Chassady,had shown him me playing

the "Dance, Dance, Dance" video of

Appalachian Road Show whereI was playing the banjo

with no fingers.

Well, he had never seen,he'd never known a dad.

Hadn't had a dad and hehad never seen anybody

with a hand like his.

So he immediately, to my dismay,

he immediately thought I was his dad.

So he looks up and he(inhales) his eyes like that.

And he reaches over andgets his little buddy

and he pats him on topof the head, and he says,

"Hey, look, that's my dad."

And he jumps up out of his chairand he starts running to me

and he just runs and I was standing there

and he just jumps upand grabs a hold of me.

So I pulled him on up and he grabbed me

and he grabbed my face andhe looked back like this.

He said, "You, my dad?"

And I said, (laughs) Ijust kinda froze, you know,

I didn't know what to say.And he said, "You, my dad."

And he reached up andkissed me on the cheek.

And he patted me and it was touching.

I mean, it was very, very touching.

- [Announcer] Barry then found out,

Beverly had also felt drawn to the kids.

- He called me and he's like,"I went and saw the kids,"

and I said, "Well, I did to."

And he's like, "What do you think?"

And I said, "I reallydon't know what to think."

- She said, "Do you think we're going

to need to do something?"

I said, "Well, what can we do?

We're not foster parents,there's nothing we can do."

- [Announcer] Things weren't working out

with the current foster family.

So the Abernathy'sarranged to take the kids

over Father's Day weekend.

After a great time together, they got word

Zoey and Tyler would soonbe sent to an orphanage.

- The state had called,"We're going to come get him."

So immediately everybodywent to jumping and saying,

"Hey can y'all keepthese kids a little while

while we're working something out?"

And we were like, "Yeah, we will."

And it's amazing how somethinglike that could happen

in a couple of days.

It come to fruition

and nobody, nobody knew,but God, nobody did.

- [Announcer] The Abernathys went

through the steps tobecome foster parents.

Then they made a big decision.

10 months after thatFather's Day weekend visit,

through a Zoom court date,Tyler and Zoey were adopted

and officially became partof the Abernathy family.

- Yeah baby.

(family laughs)

- Oh, it was, it wasa blast, yeah, it was.

And I think the kids,they recognized it, even,

I don't know that they knewwhat Tyler says, "doction."

He didn't know what "doction" was exactly.

But he knew that he was an Abernathy.

- I can't remember my life before them.

There's no other way to describe it

other than they belong to us.

- Well, I'm thankful that Godbrought 'em into our lives

because I don't know, it's just,

you know that they're here for a reason.

When we adopted them that morning,

you could just like feel it,like the Lord was with us.

And you just knew it was right.

- The correlation betweenus and these children

and God and all of his children,I've thought of that a lot.

We're all adopted in thefamily and not just adopted

but we're, we're made partakers.

I mean, we're partakersof life through him.

- Tyler all the timesays, " Thank you, mommy.

I appreciate you."

He thanks us for the house, everything.

And it's just like to seethe world through their eyes,

the simple life.

That's what it means.

Nothing else matters.

- Father's Day will takeon a different meaning.

The fact that we took thesechildren in on Father's Day,

the family came togetheras a whole on Father's Day,

last year, and it'll alwaysbe special to me that,

where it might not havebeen as special before,

just to know that theway God dealt with us

and what he gave us andwhat he required of us,

all that coming together on Father's Day.

It'll be a special day from now on,

as long as I live for sure.

(banjo music)