Monday, August 4, 2008

Web of Life

My husband caught Rosa (housekeeper) crying down the laundry room. When asked why she’s crying, she just said she had a big problem. Jim got very curious and so she opened up. She had her house for short sale. The bank had sold it and she need to move in a week. So, Jim suggested that she may stay with her brother for the meantime while looking for a place to stay. She replied, their house is so small and it’s already full. Besides, she had her Mom with her and 3 kids and one is pregnant. Holy Molly! That’s a bummer! It’s indeed a big problem, isn’t it? She’s close to being homeless! I have not known Rosa for a long time since she only comes every Friday with her son to do some housekeeping. Sometimes, I felt bad about her doing all the house work despite having some arthritis at times. We even decided we might just tell her to come every 2 weeks but she lost her main job- cleaning the Yoga place. She is a legal Mexican that had worked as a housekeeper/ maid here in the US for over 20 years. She can’t speak English that good though. She had acquired her house 3 years ago and maybe something that she’s looking forward to retiring. Now, she lost everything that she had worked for a long time. I mean, it was really sad when Jim told me about her story.

You know, when I came here- I was pretty much expose to some Mexicans as Jim had few good friends that helped him on some construction works. It’s even sad to see those guys standing by in Laguna Beach waiting for somebody to hire them. There’s always a parallelism on our drama and their drama in life. Jim would tell me about some weird stories- (apparently strange to him) about how the husband worked so hard here while the wife is playing fire with the brother-in-law, and so on and so forth. It doesn’t surprise me at all as I have a collection of true-to-life stories or soap operas way back in my own country. There’s not much difference at all. I guess, we just share the same culture.

I’m just relieved when Jim told me he gave her a thousand to at least help her move to some place because that’s what she was really crying about- she had no money at all! Life is not really fair for her, I think.
Shawie

6 Grateful Heart's Words:

escape said...

that's a grateful and generous heart! thank God people are still there for one another.

SHIELA said...

swerte pa jud diay ta sha. anyway, i hope everything will turn out ok with her.

grabe ninyo ka rich oi. afford man jud ang helper :)

salamat tuod sa imong pagka anindot nga comment :)

Ken said...

nice! please for this site to the Top 10 Pinoy Expats Blog!

Anonymous said...

Wow that's really nice of Jim. You are lucky to have a compassionate husband like him.

I hope it works out well with Rosa. I know how it feels to be in that sitution.

Anonymous said...

That's very generous of him.

I feel sorry for Rosa and so many others in the same situation. They work so hard all their life to attain something only to lose it in the end.

Petula said...

That was very generous. I hope everything works out for your housekeeper.