ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 3, 1996 TAG: 9606030113
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BODY CAMP
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER STAFF WRITER
note: strip
THOUGH HER LIFE WAS SHORT, Keyanie Catron touched a lot of people - and taught them "that diseases of the body don't have to be diseases of the heart.''
The first time the Rev. Bob Chittum visited Keyanie Catron, he prayed for the strength to overcome his fear of the child.
Keyanie was born with HIV. By the time she was a year old, the virus had developed into AIDS.
After hugging her, Chittum went home and, he said, "I washed and washed my hands."
Soon, though, he began to realize he was more dangerous to her than she was to him. With her reduced immunity, he could have given her a cold or another illness.
It took a few more visits with Keyanie before his fears gradually subsided. Over the past year, Chittum said, he saw changes in other people who befriended Keyanie.
"She changed our church; she came in here, and our people had a chance to test their faith," Chittum said.
Others had similar experiences.
"We learned that AIDS is not a punishment," said Judy Walker, the principal at Body Camp Elementary School, which Keyanie attended. "Her legacy is that she taught us - even people who were fearful. By knowing her, we learned about AIDS. We learned what was truth, what was fiction."
On May 15, at age 6, Keyanie Catron died.
"If we can accomplish as much in our lives as Key Key, we will have lived well," Walker said.
Keyanie was 16 months old and not supposed to make it through the night when she arrived at the Bedford County farm of Carl and Vicki Catron nearly five years ago.
The child had been released from the hospital, Vicki Catron recalls, because "doctors couldn't do anything else."
Keyanie was born to an unmarried couple, both of whom had drug-induced AIDS. The mother died last September; the father on Memorial Day.
Roanoke City Social Services workers placed Keyanie, malnourished and developmentally delayed, in the Catrons' care. Her first crib was in the living room at the foot of a hospital bed where Carl was recuperating from a stroke and back surgery.
The Catrons became foster parents about 15 years ago when their own three sons were teen-agers. Fifty-seven children - most with health problems or members of sibling groups - have been placed in their home; the Catrons have adopted 11 of them.
When Keyanie arrived, Vicki said, "We kind of felt like she was going to be our daughter. We propped her up in a chair, and she smiled at Tony," one of the Catrons' adopted children.
Everyone called her Key Key.
The child prospered in the Catrons' household, a place where children are loved and expected to thrive, as well as work. Everyone has a chore - "not a boy chore; not a girl chore," Carl said.
Key Key and her brothers and sisters had all the normal childhood fights and arguments, but they also took up for each other. The bond between Key Key and the family grew. Everyone, including sisters-in-law and nephews, helped care for the girl. Her sister Crystal did a project at her high school to educate her peers about AIDS.
But Vicki and Carl Catron spent a lot of time putting out fires and explaining that no one could get AIDS from Key Key. They told their children not to be ashamed and to tell the truth if someone asked if Key Key had AIDS.
The Catrons acknowledge now that they did have some fears when Key Key came to live with them. They would get excited if Key Key ran a fever or had diarrhea. Vicki had to learn to wear rubber gloves if Key Key had a cut or scratch or when she handled Key Key's medicines.
Sometimes Key Key, who didn't like the gloves, had to remind her mom to put them on.
"It was instinctive not to put the gloves on all the time. I would run to her like I did the other children. I didn't have time to think about it. Mothers just do it," Vicki said.
When she was 3, Key Key entered a preschool program for handicapped children at Body Camp Elementary School.
Vicki made sure that teachers, other parents, youngsters and her neighbors were educated about AIDS. She wanted Key Key to be treated like other children.
The school and Valley View Baptist Church, Chittum's church, held educational programs about the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
"I think we encountered some honest fears. But when we educated the community and teachers, we were able to help them put their fears aside," said Midge Morris, who helped coordinate Key Key's school services.
"I think people tried to understand because of this little girl. They did realize they were not going to get the disease," Morris said.
Key Key loved school. And she loved having someone read to her.
The teachers nicknamed her "Delightful One" because she was so much fun to be around. She had an easygoing personality, a smile and sparkle, fine curly hair.
Key Key didn't walk - she bounced down the hall.
She got along well with her classmates and liked to tease her teachers, but she worked hard. "It was fun when she misbehaved, if she misbehaved," said Heidi Fischer, a special education teacher.
"I wasn't afraid unless I was dealing with blood or body fluids," Fischer said, recalling how she once accidentally knocked an intravenous tube out while holding Key Key at home.
While waiting for the school bus to take her home, Key Key would eat popcorn and drink sodas that Fischer had taken from the teacher's lounge.
Fischer also would get on her knees and place her ear next to Key Key's face while the child napped to make sure her breathing was not irregular.
Fischer traveled with Key Key and Carl to Duke University's hospital to learn more about treating the child.
Fischer would visit Key Key at home even after the child became too sick to go to school. Fischer said Key Key taught her "that diseases in the body don't have to be diseases of the heart."
Key Key never complained, not even in the last months of her life when it hurt for her mother, father, or teachers to hold her while they read to her.
"AIDS controlled her life, but it never defined her life," said Cynthia Harper, a Head Start teacher who eventually asked to teach Key Key at home when the child became too sick to attend school.
"I think everybody fell in love with Key. She kind of crawled into your life and you never knew it."
Harper met Key Key through her sister, Cassandra, and was immediately drawn to her and the family. The Catrons, Harper said, take in children that other people reject.
Key Key's doctor, Donald W. Kees, said living with the Catrons' was Key Key's main therapy. Kees said she was nurtured and loved in the home.
Key Key was being treated with adults who had infectious diseases when Kees, who had just started his pediatric practice, was contacted by Health Department officials. "I was willing to take a challenge and try to take care of her." He said he learned a lot about dealing with chronic illness and how families handle it by working with Key Key and the Catrons.
About a year ago, when he thought Vicki Catron was in denial about Key Key's condition, Kees went to talk to the mother, trying to prepare her.
``Vicki said, `We know.'''
Carl Catron said he believes Key Key's mission on Earth was to educate.
``We've met a lot of special people in our lives, and Key brought them here. It was like she was saying, `I'm going to make you love me. You see Key - not what I have,''' Vicki said.
"No matter how afraid people were of Keyanie or to touch her, she would win them over. She could sense when people were afraid and would just smile."
Carl talks about friends and family who shunned Key Key.
"AIDS is a disease you need to be afraid of, but not my little angel," Vicki would remind people.
At first Vicki and Carl were angry with Key Key's birth parents. They couldn't figure out why any parent would pass on a deadly disease to their child.
But after filing for adoption and then facing the couple in court and seeing them during supervised visits with Key Key, Vicki discovered they were good people, with problems. "It was hard for them to have this deadly disease and then have their most precious gift taken from them," Vicki said.
Now, the Catrons say, they'd like to thank social service workers and Key Key's birth family "for letting us be a part of her life, for letting us be her mama and daddy."
When the Catrons learned Key Key's mother was having another child, they questioned her motives. They asked to have the child placed with them, but he was put in another foster home after his birth.
Six months later, Carl got a call to have the child - who does not have the AIDS virus - moved in with his family. At first he refused, but he and Vicki talked, and he changed his mind. "Just think what I would have missed," he said, recalling the time the boy, now 3 1/2, spent with his sister.
The Saturday before Mother's Day was one of the best days in Vicki Catron's life.
Key Key was excited and wanted to go out. Vicki carefully wrapped Key Key up and put her in the family van, where the child sat and watched the cows as her mother and brothers and sisters picked up sticks so Carl could cut grass.
Later that night, Vicki prayed that Key Key would stay with her through Mother's Day.
Vicki didn't know it, but for Mother's Day her church had planned a special honor for her as the mother who had the most adopted children. The family went out for pizza; although Key Key couldn't eat any, she was with her family.
Key Key's kidneys shut down on Monday; on Tuesday, she began to hemorrhage. Vicki's prayers changed. Key Key had been in a lot of pain, and it hurt her when her parents touched her. Vicki prayed that her daughter would go peacefully.
On Wednesday, Key Key told her mama, "I love you."
Her doctor and pastor visited. The nurse who was to show Vicki how to adjust Key Key's pain medication called to say she was running behind schedule.
Vicki was sitting on the sofa, holding Key Key, when she "did this little thing, and we didn't know what she was doing. She held her daddy's hand and held mine. I asked if she was ready to go home, and she said, `yes.'
"She took one big gasp and went home."
LENGTH: Long : 192 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Keyanie Catron's life ended when she was just 6by CNByears old, but no one had expected her to live to be 2. She was 16
months old and not supposed to make it through the night when she
arrived at the Bedford County farm of Carl and Vicki Catron nearly
five years ago. color
2. CINDY PINKSTON/Staff Vicky and Carl Catron (top right) stand with
some of their children in front of their Bedford County farmhouse.