it's not the same and that's okay

It's the ache in my chest
when I see your post
about your kid adoring his siblings
knowing my kid
will never have that

It's choosing to spend our vacation
visiting people of his past
instead of making memories
with the people of his present

It's sneaking away during Christmas
to record a video for birth mom and dad
while his cousins have all the parents they'll ever need
right there
with them

It's you brushing off my concerns
when my baby didn't know
my voice, my laugh, my smell
until he'd been around the sun two-and-a-half times

It's my anger of trying to reconcile
my long-held belief of a good God
when I see the pain and struggle
my child has to face

It's going into it with such high hopes
that I could turn a child's life around
and the slow realization
that I can't make things completely right
maybe, hopefully better
but never right

It's driving in the rain
feeling all of this heaviness
and then seeing
a rainbow
split the gray skies