My daughter has bad dreams 
She calls for me, she sobs with grief and the anguish of our pain 
She shatters the quiet night as she relives our story 
And by day, 
Toy plastic tigers come alive to find their way back to each other…

I was five years old when the strangers showed up to take me away from the only place I had ever known. They told me everything was going to be ‘ok’, but I didn’t believe them.

Already scared, isolated and grieving, you entered my life.

Already in survival mode for years, you entered anyways.

Past cries for help, gone silenced and unmet, this now top of my list; not yours…

I was a worker for a few years in the Canadian child welfare system. I stare at this blank page and think about how it’s difficult to find the words that seem right to describe those years…

I entered the field of child welfare in the late 1990’s. During my first year, I removed children from their parent(s) several times. By the end of my second year, I had participated in at least two trials as far as I can remember now…

A poem about a mother’s experience in the child welfare system.