I used to think the worst pain in the world was losing my girls the day the state took them.
But I was wrong.
The worst pain is seeing who they were after.
It didn't happen all at once.
It crept in slow, like a shadow slipping under a door.
Tiny changes at first—little things most people would dismiss.
But a mother can hear a storm coming before the first drop hits the ground.
I noticed it during a visit—one of the short, supervised ones where love had to follow rules and hugs needed permission slips.
They walked in holding hands, but it wasn't the sisterly sweetness they used to have.
It was fear.
Clinging.
Like two small animals trying to survive in a world that suddenly felt too big.
My youngest used to come running.
Every visit.
Full speed.
No hesitation.
But not this time.
This time she stopped in the doorway and looked at the worker first, like she needed approval to be happy to see me.
The worker nodded, and only then did she take a few slow steps toward me—like she wasn't sure she'd be allowed.
That hesitation broke my heart in a way I didn't know hearts could even break.
When she climbed into the chair beside me, she didn't smile.
She just leaned into my arm, quiet, like she was afraid being loud might get her in trouble.
My oldest… she was different too.
She'd always been the brave one, the little mama bear, the one who protected her sister even when she shouldn't have had to.
But now her eyes looked older.
Harder.
Like she'd learned things children shouldn't learn so young.
She sat across from me instead of beside me.
Arms crossed.
Jaw tight.
Not angry at me—
angry at a world she couldn't understand.
I asked her, "How are you, baby?"
She shrugged.
"Fine."
But the way she said it wasn't fine at all.
It was the kind of fine people use when they've already given up being heard.
Near the end of the visit, my youngest suddenly flinched when the worker raised her voice at another child down the hall.
Just a tiny flinch—
but enough to make my entire body tense.
She climbed onto my lap so quickly her little fingers dug into my shirt.
"Mama, I don't like it there," she whispered.
I stroked her hair, trying not to let my hands shake.
"What don't you like?"
She shook her head.
"Just don't."
Kids don't hide specifics unless they're scared.
Unless they've been taught silence.
My oldest kept drawing in the coloring book, pressing the crayon too hard.
She didn't look up when she said, quietly,
"They yell a lot."
My heart clenched.
"Who yells?"
She shrugged again.
"That's what they said I have to say. That I don't know."
That right there—
that—
was the moment I realized the system wasn't just hurting me.
It was hurting them.
Teaching them to hide things.
Teaching them their truth was dangerous.
Teaching them to protect strangers instead of their mother.
That night, I went home replaying every expression on their faces.
The forced smile.
The silence.
The flinch.
The uncertainty.
And the way my youngest clung to me like she was begging me without words to save her.
At the next visit, it got worse.
My oldest wouldn't hug me.
Not because she didn't want to—
but because she kept glancing at the worker like she needed permission.
My youngest asked me if "good kids get to go home."
Her voice cracked on the word "good."
Like she believed being taken was a punishment she'd earned.
I wiped her tears and said, "Baby, you didn't do anything wrong. None of this is your fault."
She whispered,
"But they tell us to be good or we can't see you."
My breath hitched.
"You're always good. Always."
She didn't look convinced.
Then—worst of all—my oldest asked a question so innocent, so devastating, it felt like someone reached inside me and twisted my heart until it screamed.
"Mama… why didn't you want us?"
Those words didn't come from her.
They were planted.
Watered.
Grown.
Nurtured by a system that needed her to believe that to make its job easier.
I fought the tears.
I leaned forward.
I looked her in her beautiful, broken eyes and said,
"I wanted you more than anything in this world. I never stopped wanting you. I am fighting every single day to get you back."
She didn't say anything, but her eyes glossed over—like she wanted to believe me but didn't know if she could.
When the visit ended, they cried again.
But it was different this time.
It wasn't a tantrum.
It wasn't confusion.
It was grief.
Real grief.
Tiny hearts carrying big hurt.
Pain that wasn't supposed to belong to children.
The worker led them out, little hands dragging, tiny shoulders shaking, and I sat there frozen, because this wasn't just the system's damage anymore—
this was the part where trauma grows roots.
This was the part where the scars start to show.
As the door closed behind them, I whispered to myself,
"Hold on, babies. Mama sees it. Mama knows. Mama's coming."
Because if the system thought breaking their spirits would break me too,
they were wrong.
It only made me more dangerous.
More determined.
More ready to burn my way through anything standing between me and my girls.