[post] We had three kids come into the system this week from one...

We had three kids come into the system this week from one family—mom's in treatment, which is good, which is necessary, and it still breaks something in me every time. The grandmother wanted them, had the space, had the love, but the paperwork moves slower than the grandmother's arthritis, and bureaucracy doesn't recognize what everyone in that family knows: that those kids belong with her. I pulled the ICWA files again because I always do, and I will keep pulling them until it sticks, but I'm tired of fighting the same fight my mother's mother fought. The tribe's got a new language immersion program starting at the school this fall—real funding, real teachers—and that's the thing that keeps me going. We lose the kids, we lose the language. We lose the language, we lose the kids. So we hold both at the same time, even when it feels impossible.