"I needed to do something to make things a little brighter. Even though it was a small thing, it felt significant to me. Catlin set up the box about a year ago toward the end of a long, gray winter when she was feeling a heaviness about things in her life and in the world. She wanted something bright, and found the yellow cube on Facebook Marketplace."
"Catlin struggled for years with headaches, fatigue and memory loss before finally getting a diagnosis in January 2019. Doctors found terminal brain cancer. She was 27, and she was told she had three to five years to live. Catlin paused her studies to focus on her treatment - surgery, radiation and chemotherapy."
"Once Catlin watched her mailman walk past and then return to write a note. It read, 'Tough times pass but tough people last.' Catlin's favorite pep talks are the ones that clearly come from kids, like one that said 'You are a good friend' with a backward n."
Caroline Catlin works as a grief counselor for bereaved children and teenagers, volunteers photographing terminally ill patients, and lives with Grade 3 anaplastic astrocytoma, an incurable brain cancer. Despite her circumstances, she created a bright yellow box on her Seattle sidewalk called a "little free pep talk library." The box contains index cards with encouraging messages that passersby can take or contribute. Catlin established the box about a year ago during a difficult winter when she felt heaviness about her life and the world. She wanted to create something bright and meaningful. Diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at age 27 in January 2019, she was initially told she had three to five years to live. The simple project reflects her commitment to spreading hope and positivity despite facing her own mortality.
Read at The Washington Post
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]