Loss and Gain

I enter your fifth grade classroom.

It’s writing festival

and you’ve written an “I am” poem.

“I am from never give up even if you can’t take it.”

Your words on the paper.

“And live, love, stay alive and strong.”

Stay alive and strong.

Other parents who know some of your story

look at your poem,

uncomfortable with your confidence.

How not broken you are.

But when it’s just you and me,

driving in the car

or walking together on our path through the woods,

you give me a glimpse at what goes on in your head.

How alone you have felt.

How scared you have been.

And how that fear pops up every so often.

Not knowing who to trust.

Not learning how to love.

Not feeling safe.

How the years leading up to your arrival to us were

complicated.

How the joyful reunion with your brother at our house

and the beginning of together forever

meant both loss and gain.

Adoption is always loss and gain.

It’s okay to still love your first dad, I say.

Even if he did the best he could and it wasn’t enough.

We can hold the complexity together.

It’s okay to be proud of who you are, I say.

Even the parts you don’t want to share.

You don’t have to tell me everything.

Or anything.

We can sit in the silence together.

It’s okay to feel insecure, I say.

Even if your body tells you you’re safe

and it’s been that way for a while.

Take as long as you need.

We can walk through that together.

And as we hold, and sit, and walk together,

I want you to know that you’re allowed to feel strong,

and you deserve to feel loved.

You are so loved.

“I am from never give up even if you can’t take it.”

Your words on the paper.

"And live, love, stay alive and strong.”