Homebound Client “Makes a Mark” on Case Manager

Continuing our celebration of Older Americans Month, Brittani Blackston, a Case Manager II with the Medicaid Waiver program at the Area Agency on Aging of West Alabama, shares a story of one of her clients that has “Made a Mark” on Brittani’s life.

By Brittani Blackston
Case Manager II
West Alabama Regional Commission
Area Agency on Aging

When I first began working as a Case Manager, I met Ms. C.  She is an amazing person and I call her a piece of living history. She cannot recall a lot of recent events, but she remembers everything about her younger life.  The life lessons she has spoken to me, have “Made a Mark” on how I relate to older persons. 

Ms. C experienced living through the civil rights era and remembers different events during that time. In order to work, her mother lived in Detroit and Ms. C’s grandmother would send her there every summer, so she didn’t have to pick cotton. While there she played with her friend, Bernadine,  and they roller skated all over the place!

When she was a young child her grandmother was a cook at a place called Pete’s Café, that used to be near the University Club, and she remembers being carried on her grandmother’s back across town while her grandmother carried groceries on her head. When her grandmother had to be at work at 3 am, Ms. C would sleep on the sacks of potatoes in the back. Her grandmother was kind to the hobos who rode the rails through town and they would always leave goodies for them on their porch. She said her grandmother taught her to always help those in need and she would be blessed.

She’s carried that life lesson throughout her life.  Ms. C worked as a cook at the University of Alabama for many years and said the people she cooked for treated her so well. She would make thousands of rolls and cinnamon buns each week. Later, when she worked at a mental health facility, she witnessed co-workers that did not treat all patients with love and care.  And when she reflects back on that work, she has told me numerous times, “people can tell who will be kind and who won’t.”

Ms. C is older and her health is declining and she even refers to herself as “antique.” I always smile at her and tell her she is an antique and not old, because antiques are priceless, and she is exactly that to me! And no matter her physical condition, her spirit and pure soul is as vibrant at this age as ever and she Makes a Mark on the hearts of all she encounters.