Sometimes in phones.
Sometimes in photographs.
Sometimes in the face of a child who deserves to be acknowledged.
And sometimes underneath a cake while an entire family celebrates a lie.
My daughter waited four years to become a mother.
She thought the greatest thing she would receive at the end of that wait was a healthy baby.
But I think she gained something else too.
She learned that after spending years fighting desperately to hold on to something, walking away from what hurts you isn’t failure.
And she learned that innocent people do not have to become enemies simply because adults betrayed one another.
I still have photographs from that gender reveal.
I rarely look at them.
In one, Lauren is holding the slice of pink cake.
Everyone around her is smiling.
Mark is smiling too.
Only Lauren isn’t.
For a long time, that photograph made me sad.
