The dark, musty carpet itched under my legs. I sat cross-legged on the living room floor of Miss Catherine’s home with a notebook heavy in my lap. Paint was slowly drying on my clothes and skin due to the unique carelessness of teenage boys allowed to paint houses. Through the discomfort of the carpet’s threads woven like fraying memories, I could feel decades of children sitting there before me, looking at the same pale pink walls and floral curtains surrounding us like a mother’s arms. The green leather armchair Miss Catherine sat in, glossy from use, creaked as she sat with years of movement that could barely shift a feather.

Though she is now weak from the burdens of time, when she was young and unchallenged, Miss Catherine could move mountains with the brush of a hand. She sat with her friend at the kitchen table, discussing what she wanted to do with her life. Her high school education had ended, and it was time move the next mountain. She needed to find a job.

“I heard of an opening as a nurse's aide at the children’s hospital,” her friend told her, “one that pays well.”
“Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure I could work with kids like that, I don’t know if I’m really a caregiver,” Miss Catherine replied.

“Just think about it,” suggested her friend.

Miss Catherine did think about it. She even considers her choice even now, decades later, looking at the house that she earned in her mountain-moving, and the decisions she has made since that one in particular. Miss Catherine took the position as a nurse’s aide, and started that next Monday. The job brought out more in her than she expected. She was taught to care for neglected and abused children, to be their guardian angel with a stethoscope. For twenty-three years across hospitals in Atlanta, she showed love and care to children who had never been given a second thought by anyone before her.

Eventually, it was time to move on from her position; by now, Miss Catherine knew she was a caregiver. This trait was evident in the way she took care of her great grandchild. Whenever the little girl came up to her, Miss Catherine would speak to her with dignity and respect, showing the girl how to behave by example.

The next step in Miss Catherine’s life was to become a foster parent. She truly changed children’s lives. Miss Catherine wanted solely to care for small children, for their messes and their voices like little flutes, and was able to take in six or seven children at a time. After seeing so many children grow up, Miss Catherine says that there are two things that will raise a child the right way: respect for their elders, and support from their community. One of her girls passed the bar exam and became a lawyer. Miss Catherine told me, with great pride, that she would always support someone if they wanted to move up in life, and that her girl was an example of that.

Miss Catherine cared for others, but it is time that they take a turn caring for her. For years, as Miss Catherine shared her home, she dreamed of having a large room with a four-poster bed and a seat by the window. The kids that grew up around her never forgot her, and they helped her realize this dream. By supporting and pushing others to great heights, Miss Catherine has made life better for herself. As she shows me the room, she has tears in her eyes when she remembers having her dream arrive at her doorstep.

“They came back for me,” she whispered, “I helped them, and the came back for me.”