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Life's challenges don't seem to faze Debbie Shurig.
She has had 68 foster children go through her Weymouth Township home.
Eleven others belonged to her and her husband: Four she gave birth to and another seven they adopted.
Becky DeMille and Amanda Husta, now 32 and 31 and mothers themselves, say they never understood kids who had problems with their parents.
There weren't the teenage girl-mom battles they saw in their friends homes where there were less kids. They also never felt slighted, with back to school shopping a one-on-one trip for each child, who also had their own pets and, as a necessity, strict laundry schedules.
Even with just two bathrooms, seven girls, four boys and two parents, everything somehow worked.
Now, there's a new challenge. Shurig was recently diagnosed with cancer.
It means treatment and expense and lots of prayers and support.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBfJuEOZ-Vw&t=6s
“Fighting cancer isn't something that's going to be a setback in our family,” Husta says. “It's going to only make us stronger and make our support system definitely grow.
Shurig is matter-of-fact as speaks of the diagnosis.
She went to the doctor for a kidney infection when a CAT scan found a mass that alerted the doctor to lymphoma.
“I look at it as a blessing,” she says as she sits at her kitchen table with four of her children. “If I didn't have the kidney infection, they wouldn't have found it.”
She had few symptoms, she says. And those that showed could be explained by other things.
Her treatment plan is still in the early stages, but she doesn't seem worried.
Whatever comes, it usually works out. That's how it seems to happen here, anyway.
One day, when Becky was in grade school she brought Kim home.
“Mom, can my friend stay the night?” she asked.
“And 22 years later,” Zachary Shurig says of the first of seven who joined their family through adoption.
Debbie Shurig soon started working within the foster system.
Whenever she'd answer the phone, the kids would start asking: “Is it a baby? Is it a baby? Say yes!”
She did. One time, her hard-working husband didn't realize right away.
Baby Ben has been at the Shurigs' home for three days when Bill asked, “Who's living in our bedroom?”
“Don't worry,” she replied. “He has a place to go.”
Bill Shurig had heard that before.
Seventeen years later, Benjamin Shurig is a high school senior who just joined the Marines.
“If we don't keep him, we'll never know what he turns out to be,” Debbie Shurig recalls then-8-year-old Tricia Shurig saying.
Tricia herself joined the family with her three siblings after they were found abandoned.
"Do you all have the same mother and father?" kids would ask when they saw the diverse group.
"Of course we do," Husta said she would reply.
Each child had a favorite.
“Amanda took Isiah for her own,” DeMille says. “Little Willie was mine.”
Of those who didn't stay, Debbie Shurig remembers each face, even some of the details have faded, she said.
“It was hard because you would get attached,” Shurig says. “Your ultimate goal in fostering is reunification.”
All Shurig really wanted for them was that their time spent in this home would leave them with good memories.
That's what all her children have, recalling their childhoods with humor and memories of trips. Every summer, an exchange student would come from Japan, meaning trips to the typical American spots.
"The Statue of Liberty 13 times," Husta laughs.
Beyond the memories, the 11 Shurig kids want more. So, they'll pull together and fight for their mom.
Zachary Shurig, a 25-year-old Atlantic County corrections officer, has set up a
GoFundMe page to help with him mom's treatment.
Husta will be here, living in the home's upstairs apartment with her husband and two kids.
“She won't let me leave,” DeMille jokes.
Husta and the eldest Shurig, Veronica Krulish, live nearby.
On Jan. 7, Debbie will celebrate her 58th birthday and 39 years of marriage.
The number seven has followed her, she says. Seven has been lucky, including the seven children she and Bill officially added to their family.
“If I hadn't had mom in my life I would have had a lot more troubles to deal with and a lot more obstacles to climb,” says Maxwell Shurig, 19, who came to the family at 10 months. “If anything, (the cancer fight) is going to make our family a lot stronger than it already is.”
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