I was in trouble, but it was the most fortunate trouble ever. I was removed from Danielle Hell within two days and sent to live with Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Brooks, where I was the only foster child in a warm, comfortable home. They were young and childless and all of their attention centered on me. Best of all, I could stay in school with my wonderful Mrs. Whitley for the remainder of the year.

Mrs. Brooks was a large, bosomy woman who loved to cook. Her response to any bad day was cookies, cake or biscuits. Her response to any good day was cookies, cake or biscuits.

We read and watched TV together, snacking in happy silence. She funded every Scholastic Book Order I’d ever dreamed of. We took trips to the mall in her tiny Toyota, gradually replacing my wardrobe with pieces I wasn’t ashamed to wear.

I was happier than I’d been in my life.

Two years later I came home from school to discover “Ma Brooks” slumped in her chair in front of Days of Our Lives. She’d suffered a massive stroke. I called 911 and screamed for help, hysterical in my belief she could be saved if the ambulance would hurry.

She couldn’t.

I stood in Jimmy Brooks’ arms and cried in the hospital’s waiting room, knowing he could never care for me on his own.

I came to Fred and Lena Johnson in Birmingham through their church. They were a kindly couple already in their late sixties as I struggled through adolescence, and they treated me as the daughter they’d always wanted and taught me the lessons they’d learned over a lifetime. Mom and Dad filled my head with a fragile sense of self-worth and possibility; my battered heart with unconditional love. They legally adopted me on my sixteenth birthday—the proudest day I’d ever known.

Mom volunteered at the nearby nursing home twice a week and insisted I help. It was there, watching her hold the hand of an elderly stranger as she read to him, I decided to become a nurse. The kindness, the wisdom, the sheer friendliness and gratitude of those old people brought tears to my eyes.

Much more importantly, they made me feel needed.

I told Mom about my decision. “You have so much goodness in you, Ronni. I knew it from the minute I met you. I’m thrilled you’re going to share it with those who are thirsty for the smallest kindness.”

We had far too few years as a family. Both Mom and Dad had battled cancer throughout mid-life, and they died within weeks of each other while I was in nursing school. I found myself alone again at twenty-one. Selling our house paid for my degree and a shiny maroon ‘06 Honda Accord I nicknamed Ruby. She was taking me to Birmingham now.