For nine summers in a row, my parents left me out of the family vacation so my brother could have what they called a “complete family.
As I looked at the photograph, I realized it was the first family picture where I wasn’t standing outside the frame. I was exactly where I should have been all along.
Leaving home never erased the childhood I lost.
What it gave me instead was something far more valuable.
The chance to build a family where no child would ever have to wonder if they belonged.