broken by the system

broken bonds

It wasn’t long before I learned the harsh reality of foster care. My children were separated almost immediately—placed in different homes, with strangers who didn’t understand them, didn’t know their hearts, their needs. I couldn’t be there to comfort them, to tell them that everything would be okay. And they couldn’t be there for each other. The bonds that held us together were being stretched to their breaking point.Lillyanna was the one who suffered the most. She was only three years old, too young to understand why her mommy wasn’t there, why her brothers were gone, why everything she knew had been taken from her. I heard from the foster parents that she cried for me every night, asking when she could come home. It broke my heart to know that my baby was hurting and there was nothing I could do to ease her pain.Peyton and Andre were placed in separate homes as well. Peyton, my lively, energetic boy, seemed to lose some of his spark. He became quieter, more withdrawn. He had always been the one to cheer everyone up, but now, without his brothers around, without his mom, he felt lost. Andre, already sensitive, retreated even further into himself. He didn’t talk much when I saw him, and when he did, it was clear he didn’t trust the world anymore.Dominic was a fighter, but even he was starting to break under the weight of it all. He asked me during our visits why this was happening, and how could I explain something so senseless to an 8-year-old? I wanted to tell him that everything would be okay, that I was doing everything I could to bring them home, but even I wasn’t sure how long this nightmare would last.Every week, I got one hour with them. One hour to hug them, to tell them I loved them, to remind them that I was still fighting for them. But when that hour was up, I had to say goodbye again, and it never got easier. The hardest part was watching them walk away, knowing that they were going back to homes that weren’t theirs, to people who weren’t me. And hearing Lillyanna cry for me as she was taken away—it shattered me every single time.The bonds we had built over years of love and care were being frayed by time, distance, and pain. But I refused to let them break. No matter how much the system tried to tear us apart, I clung to the hope that we would be together again. I had to believe that love was stronger than any system, stronger than any obstacle they put in our way. We would be whole again. I just had to keep fighting.