L&T Before they knew
When the children were placed with their grandmother, everyone breathed a small sigh of relief. At least they would stay together.
She loved them fiercely. There was never much doubt about that.
But love and stability are not always the same thing.
Grandma was doing the best she could while carrying burdens of her own. Some months the cupboards were full enough. Other months, dinner was whatever could be stretched one more day. Bills piled up on the kitchen counter, and every day she carried the impossible weight of trying to give two little children a childhood while barely holding her own life together.
Tobin was only a few months old.
His sister Lily had just turned three.
Lily couldn't understand why she no longer lived with her mom. She didn't know what foster care meant or why adults whispered behind closed doors.
She only knew one thing.
Wherever her baby brother went, she wanted to go too. If he cried, she'd walk over with his blanket or her favorite stuffed animal, convinced one of them would make everything better. If someone picked him up, she'd stand nearby, watching. At bedtime she wanted his crib close enough to reach through the slats and touch his tiny fingers before she fell asleep, even if it meant waking him up.
He had been her best friend since they day she first saw him - still too small to hold all by herself.
He was simply her baby brother.
In her mind, they belonged together.
Children don't need words like “trauma”, “court” or “placement” to know that their world has changed.
They feel it in the empty seat at the table.
The different bedroom.
The unfamiliar sounds of a new house.
The grown-ups trying to smile while carrying worries too big for children to understand.
At three years old, she wasn't wondering what tomorrow would bring.
She was wondering if tomorrow she'd still wake up next to her brother.
For children experiencing foster or kinship care, those early relationships become an anchor in a world that suddenly feels unfamiliar.
Grandma loved them.
She tucked them in every night. She kissed scraped knees. She celebrated birthdays the best she could.
But she couldn't do it alone. None of them could.
To be continued...