Going Back
Eight years after leaving Mill Creek, Amara returned.
She was thirty years old.
She arrived in a black car.
Her mother stood outside their old house.
The house looked smaller than Amara remembered.
The road looked shorter.
The trees looked different.
But the memories were still there.
Amara walked to the beginning of the old route.
She stood quietly.
Her mother joined her.
“Remember this?”
Amara smiled.
“How could I forget?”
They walked together.
For the first time, Amara didn’t have to walk eight miles.
She could have driven.
But she wanted to walk.
Halfway there, she saw a group of children walking toward school.
One little boy was wearing shoes with a hole in one of them.
Amara stopped.
“How far do you walk?”
The boy looked at her.
“About five miles.”
“Every day?”
He nodded.
Amara looked at the road.
Then she looked at the children.
Her decision came instantly.
She knew exactly what she had to do.
Three months later, she announced a new project.
A free transportation program for students in underserved rural communities.
But that wasn’t all.
She created after-school learning centers.
She provided school supplies.
She created scholarship programs.
And she hired teachers from the communities themselves.
People asked her why she was doing so much.
Her answer was always the same.
“Because I remember what it felt like to walk that road alone.”
