this is the only place I feel people may understand and not tell me to "get over it"

I am not a birth parent, but I am what you would call a "fictive kin." (If for some reason this should not be posted here PLEASE do not delete it and PLEASE notify me first. I need to copy it down somehow...)

This is SUPER long, so if you don't have time don't worry about it. I honestly just need a place to write this down in its entirety without fear of being told to "get over it" "they aren't your kids" or anything of the sort... I know they aren't my kids. It doesn't make it hurt any less.

For 7 years of my life, I helped raise my "neice and nephew." I am not biologically related to them, but I am their aunty Sarah. I helped potty train the children, I taught them how to read, I had them about the same amount of time as a regular non custodial parent. Every other weekend or week, and for a short period (under a month) the children lived with me full time because their mother couldn't afford heat in the dead of Michigan winter. Every summer I had them more than half the time. I had them or was at their mother's house with them) EVERY holiday, birthday or special event. They were in my wedding in 2011. I versed them in the Bible, effectively being a "god parent," I changed their diapers, helped them with homework, saw them more than their bio father, fraternal grandmother, and maternal grandmother combined. Grandfathers were not even in the picture as far as I knew. My "sister" was not a great mom. By any means. She was never raised herself, and in turn had no idea how to raise a child. She did not have medial cooking skills or cleaning skills, and kept food in the cat dish rather than heat in her home on numerous occasions. She locked them in their room because she had no idea how to handle them, and the boy would sneak out when people were sleeping and get in their car and drive away, starting at age 4! The little girl screamed like a banshee when it was bath time, so it was usually up to me to endure the bath time once or twice a week because my sister could not handle it and would spank her just to get her to be quiet. But they were always fed and clothed. And my sister loved them as much as she could, but she wasn't ready to be a parent. She had them young and they were the children of... *sigh* her mother's husband. (Not her father but the man her mother married) But they were the sweetest, kindest, most heart warming children ever. Always curious, always wanted to help, cook, clean, if I was doing homework, they just wanted to help and be around me whenever they could. They loved to go outside and play, they loved to sit inside and watch TV, they loved to do chores, they especially loved when I would give them a dollar or two for doing an extra chore, they loved to do homework, they loved EVERYTHING!! They loved my husband and me furiously and loved their mother more than I think he could ever understand. They were sweet and kind, and even though they had SERIOUS behavior problems, and would destroy and EAT every thing, and I mean, they ate their bed, their box springs, their walls, their ceiling panels, they would pee in the corner of their room and claw at the walls and eat stuffed animals. NO they were not hungry, they ALWAYS had enough to eat, I assume they had pica of some sort. But they loved so much I couldn't understand that much love being in that tiny of a body. They wanted to be with people and paid attention to CONSTANTLY. Their mother didn't know how to handle it, and kept them in their room to just keep them off of people. Their mother didn't have remedial cleaning skills, so their clothes were always dirty and they always smelled like smoke and cat pee... People called CPS on them all the time, but CPS never did anything. So we just continued on as best we could and had the children over at out house as much a s their mother allowed. This all changed when they were called again late in 2012. This time they came around at least once a week to see what was going on, told my sister rto take the lock off the door and replace it with an alarm so they knew the kids were out. My sister hated having people around, and spent most of her time on the computer, which was more important to her than her children, her live in boy friend, me, cleaning, going out, or anything else. Well of course the children got taken by CPS in November or 2012. They went to a foster home, and although I was in the process of getting my foster license, they would not let the children go to me because I did not have it yet. They gave the children to their fraternal grandmother, a woman who saw them maybe three times a year... their father had died 2 years earlier. I was allowed a 15 minute visit, at the end of the mother's supervised visitation, once a month... And although I took my sister to visits, the children had to sit next to the grandmother and were not allowed to sit and visit with their mother or me. Once in a great while the grandmother allowed them to, but not often. The boy got increasingly violent, and huge. He was 8 years old and looked 14 all of a sudden... He was always slightly portly but got so huge it was rediculous, every time I saw them they were eating some sort of candy or fast food. The boy kicked, bit and hit his mother at every visit. He had NEVER been violent before this. The grandmother would allow thm to take her tablet into visits and the little girl would pay more attention to that than her mother, and didn't seem to care much for her mom at all. They had both been going to school full time before being taken, and had problems in school but were OK for the most part. After they were put into the new school district, they had constant problems, and the grandmother switched them to only half a day of school to avoid problems. Then the visits for me were cancelled, the only reason I got was "the visits are for the mother and children, not other people." Then they moved the time for visits to a time that I could not take her, because of school or work I don't remember which. I saw them for my monthly visits from Dec 2012 - March 2013, and then stopped taking her to visits in april 2013. I saw them once in August or so, but the boy told me I didn't love him and the girl mostly ignored me. I almost died of a broken heart... At first I was awake every night worrying about them, I cried constantly and couldn't imagine my life with out them. I wanted to die without them, but I " wasn't family" so I didn't get any rights or visitation. where as the maternal grandmother got to see them once or twice a month, a woman who told them she would punch them in the face, and used to beat their mother and leave her on her own for days at a a time. Called me a ********* and a ******** constantly in front of the children, called the little girl a ********* and left them alone for half the night and day every time they were "visiting overnight." A woman who saw them maybe once a month before they were placed. She got visitation... Every time I look at their clothes or toys I want to cry. I always told my husband that if something happened and the grandmother couldn't have them anymore, we would find room for them and take them in. But I have realised, that even if that happens... they are not the same children anymore... Everything about them has changed... They are not the same sweet loving children I helped raise, they are mean careless empitheticless... I don't know I just want to cry as I type but I just want to call them creatures instead of children... I know they are the same biologically but I feel like they have been replaced by... I don't know... :cry: :hissy: I just want my sweet babies back... And no one cares or understands how much pain and just heart wrenching agony I am in every time I realise I will never see them again, and even if I do they will not live me or care at all about me anymore... I try not to think of it... I have finally started to give away the Christmas presents I wrapped for them over 2 years ago, (because they would have been with me for Christmas, as they were every year...) I have started to allow my friend's child to wear the little girls clothes, that I still have in a bag from when I cleaned out their dressers for our foreign exchange students... I am healing... But I know as long as I love their will be a giant hole in NY heart that NO ONE sees or understands. People ask my why I still talk about them like they were here yesterday... When trying to get our foster license, Evey conversation we had seemed to include them some how. I'd be asked, "what would you do in [insert situation]?" And the answer would always invold "well when niece or nephew would do that I would... [Fill in blank]" I was specifically asked why I talked about them like they were my kids and all of the parenting experience I had came from either them or my SS. And why I talk like they are still around if I have not seen them in over a year. I wanted to cry... But I am not family... So I have no right to be sad and miss them so much... I just want my life back and to have my babies back and love me again...