ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, October 22, 1996 TAG: 9610220046
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BETH MACY
DATELINE: BODY CAMP
SOURCE: BETH MACY
It takes time to get to Rainbow Farm from Roanoke, almost an hour in a foggy rain. First there's a state road into Bedford County, then a winding county road, then a dirt road.
``You drive forever,'' Vicki Catron says on the phone. ``You're here when you get to a cream-colored farmhouse with blue shutters - with all these children hanging out of the windows, like the old lady in the shoe.''
The fog and rain have lifted in the predusk and, true to the farm's name, a rainbow straddles the horizon. Hay bales and plastic play houses dot the landscape. Chickens scratch in the dirt.
The 4-year-old boy nicknamed Bear stands in the doorway of the only home he has ever known. Although he doesn't yet realize it, this may be one of the last greetings he makes at Rainbow Farm.
``Hi, how did you get here?'' he wants to know.
He holds up his plastic gas pump: ``Do you need some gas?''
The older kids do homework around the kitchen table while the younger ones watch "Barney." Vicki Catron is enveloped by a rainbow of children, both literally and in the photographs that line her living-room wall. A veteran foster parent, she has housed 57 children for Roanoke social services, 10 of whom she has adopted legally. Her current head count is six, all of them permanent - except Bear.
She's on a conference call with a friend and an aide to Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke. While the children - black, white and biracial, most with disabilities - reveal snapshots of life at Rainbow Farm, Catron airs her grievance to Goodlatte's office:
I have had Bear since he was 6 weeks old. No one wanted him then - they thought he had HIV, like his parents and his sister. But we never hesitated. We took him in, knowing that we might have to go through the same thing, knowing we might have to watch him die.
``We got pigs and cows here, but my favorites are the cats and the dogs,'' Bear offers.
Nine-year-old Nicole says: ``I got to hold Bear when he was little. He was so cute. He looked just like a teddy bear.''
Catron clasps her hand over the phone to shush the children. She tells them, ``Listen, you have to be quiet, so I can think about what I'm saying.''
She returns to the phone. He's lost both of his parents and his sister to AIDS. But he doesn't have it; he's negative. He's our miracle. And now that he's fine, they want to take him away from me. Please tell the congressman, I need help.
Vicki Catron has never fought the system before. In fact, in her 14 years of foster-parent service, she has never questioned the agency when it placed one of her foster kids for adoption. ``Even when they're babies and they leave, it hurts us. But I've never said 'no.' I've helped a lot of people become families.''
But not this time. Catron is fighting the removal of Bear - and not because she harbors any ill will toward the couple who want to adopt him. ``They're nice, well-educated people,'' she says. ``But after all he's been through, it's not right for him to have to lose his mama, too.''
Bear was 6 weeks old when the agency asked Catron to take him in. His biological parents were dying of AIDS. His first foster family handled him with rubber gloves.
Eighteen months earlier, Catron had been the only foster parent out of a pool of 135 to take in Bear's sister Keyanie (``Key Key'') - a child who was very sick at the time, but managed to live to the age of 6. Keyanie died May 15 on Catron's living-room couch. In her arms.
No one disputes the care Catron has given her children. Key Key, especially, lived longer than anyone imagined. Even Corinne Gott, the social services superintendent who has decided Bear should leave, says of Catron: ``We have been very appreciative of her working relationship with us.''
But the agency's goal for every foster child is permanent placement. And Catron, the agency has recently learned, is not ``legally suitable'' to adopt the boy, even though that always has been her goal.
The reason: Her husband left her; they are not yet divorced.
``They're saying my home isn't stable, and I'm not financially stable,'' she says. They're saying Bear must be placed for adoption by the end of this month.
The decision has enraged many people who have watched Bear grow in spite of losing his sister, his biological parents and Catron's husband, the only father he ever knew.
Dr. Donald Kees, Carilion Health System's pediatrics director and Bear's doctor, uses words such as ``stable foundation'' and ``resourceful'' and ``full of fortitude'' to describe Catron's maternal style.
``The first time her husband left her [in January], she went through a depression, and I was concerned about Keyanie's care. But she pulled herself through that and continued to give the girl excellent care. She was running her own home hospital, which is no small feat.
``For Bear to lose his mother - right after losing his sister and his father - at the age of 4, he can adapt. But that's still taking away a very stable foundation,'' Kees adds. ``Even though he might not have the newest, nicest toys and his own private bedroom with a bath, he gets all the nurturing he needs from Mrs. Catron.''
Catron concedes that her finances are a mess. She's two years behind on her farm mortgage, and her phone's been cut off more than once.
She's been picking up work where she can find it - stripping tobacco in the fields one week, substituting for a school cafeteria worker the next. She volunteers at Bear's preschool when she can't pick up work - ``so I won't just be home getting depressed.''
And she tries to pull strings on the phone - calling Goodlatte, Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County, and Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton; contacting Legal Aid. Tim Greenway, a Cycle Systems executive who heard about her plight at church, has become the point man for her cause.
``I don't know enough even to agree or disagree,'' he says. ``But I think she ought to have the time to work out some options. Everybody you talk to says she is a tremendous asset to the child. And, if nothing else, she ought to be given the benefit of the doubt - she took the kids in when no one else would.''
Gott, who won't comment on the case, has been besieged by calls and letters on Catron's behalf. ``But there are rules we have to follow,'' she says. ``We have regulations to ensure that children won't be adrift in the foster care system.''
Back at Rainbow Farm, Bear asks Catron, ``Mama, can I sit with you?'' Then he snuggles up on her lap. He's been clingy since he heard he might be leaving, she explains.
Every morning at preschool he asks, ``Mama, you're gonna come pick me up today, right?'' Every night he crawls into her bed.
``Miss Gott hugged me with tears in her eyes. I know they think it's in the best interests of this child,'' she adds. And then, through her own tear-filled, baggy eyes, she says:
``I can't guarantee he'll never get in trouble, but I can teach him right and wrong and to trust the Lord. And that no matter what they do, I still love 'em, and they can be anything they wanna be.
``I gave up on Key Key, but only at the very end. I can't give up on Bear. I always want my children to know I'm not giving up - not on any of them.''
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