The Woman Who Helps Take Care of My Mother-in-Law, the Features of a Woman

The kindness is, reciprocated, if you treat the hired help kind, then, they will, treat those whom you’d hired them to look after kind as well…translated…

“I can expect, that you found a good nurse’s aide.”, as I’d gone to get my facial, I’d started the conversation with my beautician, H, she’d mentioned, “my clients would come here, to tell about the goings on of their families, those who had nothing but complaints, we’d called them difficult customers amongst ourselves, they’d not found good enough caretakers that they’re in need of, and how the clients who were easy to get along, who were too picky, they all found good caretakers for their, loved ones.”

“Is that so?”, my personal belief is, how can you find an around-the-clock caretaker with only a little over $20,000N.T. of monthly wages?  Only those migrant workers who’d left their home, are willing to take these, hot potatoes, and so, being able to find a caretaker to help look after my mother-in-law, other than feeling glad, I’m also, more than, grateful.

the day of work of these, household caretakers…helping to look after our aging parents…photo from online

H continued, “some of the customers believed, that they’d HIRED these caretakers, that naturally, these hired help would have to work around the clock, nonstop, even if the hired help were only taking a few minutes off to take a breath, the employers felt that they got cheated out of their, money.  We’d not dared tell these clients how we’d felt about that truthfully, after all, their mindset was, “I paid for you, you need to work your hands to the bones for me”.

Thankful, I’d never carried this way of thoughts, instead I’d felt for Anna, our hired caretaker, that she couldn’t be with her, families; no matter who it is, we all need the spare times, the breathers, so when the harder times come, we will have the needed strengths, to help ourselves, through.

Anna who’s over forty came from Indonesia, with two sons, worked here for many years.  She’s a devout Muslim, other than using her spare time from work during the daytime to read the Quran, she would also use the communication apps to have facetime with her loved ones and friends back home.

Although most would use their own experiences, warned us, “you can’t spoil the help”, and yet, we only, gave her the respect, the space she needed, and we’d still given her the reminders as she was in need, we’d, demonstrated for her, and would tell Anna, that my mother-in-law needed her to be more understanding toward her.

helping to take care of our aging parents, because we have to work, we rely on their being there! Photo from online

In February of this year, my mother-in-law just recovered from falling ill, with her feeding tube in, she’d still felt hungry for foods, and in her gulfing down the foods, we’d had to, reinstall her feeding tubes twice because she’d eaten too fast, and the food got clamped in the tube, it’d caused my mother-in-law enormous discomfort, and after that, Anna only used the tube to feed the foods to her.  Seeing how my mother-in-law’s gazes showed of her longing to taste food, I’d, blended the cooked items into goo, and fed it to her, and had Anna made sure that the feeding tube wasn’t clogged up by giving water to my mother-in-law through the feeding tube, seeing the water level dropping down, Anna and I high fived each other.  The following day, Anna copied what I did on the previous day, blended the foods in her spare time.

Seeing how happy my mother-in-law was enjoying the foods, I’d felt ever the more grateful for Anna from the largest island country in the world, helping me with caring for my mother-in-law.

And so, this, is the kindness shown to the hired help, and this is important, because a lot of people here still held the values of “I hired you to work, so I can, work you to your bones”, and these families mistreats those whom they’d hired top look after their loved ones, and if you don’t treat those whom you’d hired to help with caring for your elderly family members enough, then you can’t expect that those hired by you will treat your elders kind enough, because everything IS, reciprocated.  If you treat them kindly, then they will love your elders, like they’re their own, next-of-kin too!