It is very rare to hear someone tell you exactly how you have impacted your life. It happened to me this week. I am overcome with the magnitude of the words spoken by a former client of mine.

“I did everything because you told me I could. I didn’t want to live here. Who would ever want to live in a group home? But you made it home and my life was better because you were here to help me.” Wow.

She came to tell me goodbye as this was my final week at the group home before I started my new job yesterday. I couldn’t bear to hear her speak those words—and how can that be? How can it be so darn nerve wracking for someone to tell me I did good? It has been very hard to leave this place I have spent the last fourteen years. It is hard to leave my clients and my coworkers and everything I have known to start out again into the great unknown. However, I leave it knowing my time here really mattered.

That is a treasure I hold dearly in my heart—the knowing that it mattered.

It’s funny, I was employee of the month twice and that didn’t matter at all. In my mind and heart—who cares? What mattered most to me is that I brought a bit of joy to these dear folks who had the blessing to be in a safe environment yet had carried the tragedy that brought them to the group home in the first place.

In this business, we are told not to get attached, to not get personal, to avoid touching our people and to keep a professional distance. I failed miserably at those rules. Truly. And I don’t regret it. I never could reconcile the thoughts of my mind, that I have become too close, with the feelings of my heart insisting I get closer.

I am the one who was blessed to know each of my clients. They have taught me more than I can ever explain about resilience and persistence. They taught me about faith and the power of hope. In my day to day working with those under my care, I learned firsthand that kindness and laughter and understanding goes so much further than anything else I can do for them. I hope too, that I taught them the lessons that I tried intentionally to teach—the ones about their value in the world, their strengths, that there is still joy despite the heartaches in life, that they are human, completely utterly human and a wonder in this world.

I was blessed enough to have former clients, present clients and family members of clients tell me exactly who I was to them. I wasn’t and I am not perfect, but I made a difference. I am so thankful to know it.

Now I am on to the next adventure and I have every intention of leaving my mark in this new job. I will carry the lessons I have learned with me and hopefully learn new ones too. All of us who care for others, no matter what our profession may be have the power to leave something good behind us. I don’t ever want to forget that—to leave something good. I intend to leave heartprints rather than just footprints as I journey forward.

Monika M. Basile