Dee & Grandma

How they became, family to one another, translated…

My maternal grandmother is someone who use the value of frugality well, someone who’d, cherished everything that can still be used, and, you can get that, from looking into her cabinets in her home, the plates were like brand new, with no water stains, “not wasting, no disposing”, was her motto for a very long time.

With the coming of age, my grandmother’s organs started, deteriorating away, she’s no longer as able-bodied now, she’d become, immobilized, and, my aunt who owns a hair salon close by would look after her during the daytime, but when night came, my uncles and my mother started, worrying about my grandmother who lives on her own.

“Hiring a foreign nurse” then became, the best way my mother and my uncles showed their filial piety toward grandma, hoped, that someone is there, to help grandma with everything in her house, to reduce the strains on her; but, because of the neighbors’ gossips of the cases of awful foreign hired help, she’d held on to her long-term persistent beliefs of how all migrant workers are awful, and insisted on never allowing her children to spend the money for one.

like this???  Photo found online

Every multiple communications with grandmother, we’d finally gotten the nod okay, and hired Di, from Indonesia.  When she first arrived, she wasn’t fluent enough in Mandarin, let alone, how my grandmother spoke only Taiwanese, there was a period of time, when they’d, charaded with one another, and, the simple questions, turned into, sets of complicated gestures, it’d made those who were watching close by smile.

Di had started out her day of work with mopping the floors, cleaning the house, and she’d, not allowed the toilets, the floors, the doors, the windows to slide, it’d made my maternal grandmother’s life, a whole lot easier, she’d only needed to be a “commander”.  Because of bad circulation, my grandmother would often have edema, and whenever, Di had the spare time, she’d, massaged grandma’s body, and in a few short months, the family already, treated Di like she were, a part of the family.

During the Dragon Boat Festival, Di who’d never seen the sticky rice wrapped in bamboo, steamed, found it to be, interesting, and wanted to make a few.  And so, under the “commandership” of my grandmother, in just a few tries, she’d, made the wonderful looking food items.  And that year, the sticky rice in bamboo leaves tasted unique, with the sticky rice, peanuts, the pork pieces, the eggyolk, the shallots inside, and there were, the scallops to add in that taste of fresh.  As the sticky rice were wrapped up into triangular prisms, they were placed into that ancient style, made-by-brick, traditional oven, as the wood burned, the scent from the leaves, from the rice slowly, seeped out, the food was taken out, as we’d, unwrapped the leaves, the perfect triangular prisms appeared before all of us.

offering the elderly the help she needed, photo from online

After the traditional way of life in the agriculturally run country at the beginning of the country’s history, plus her doing everything by herself, my grandmother’s body had become, strained, and she’d, needed to go to the hospitals a lot, and, my mother took her all around Taiwan, to try to find the cures for her conditions that worked.  And even so, grandma would still wet herself, and vomited in the middle of the nights, and, Di had always, waken up wide-eyed, gotten out of her bed, helped, cleaned my grandmother up.  It was truly, a hard period of time for everybody that’s for certain, in a casual conversation, Di still said to us, genuinely, “grandma is so kind to others, I hope she gets better soon”.

One year, the winter was too cold, and, my grandmother died, Di was crying her eyes out right beside my grandmother.  And, even though Di was only a hired caretaker, but, their spending all their times together every single day, their lives were, closely, related to each other’s, they’re, already, family.

And so, this, is a case of how an elderly woman started, relying on the foreign hired help, because, her children are all too busy, making their own lives meet, and so, they’d, found her this woman from Indonesia to help take care of the elderly woman, and, the elderly woman was touched by how the hired help had treated her so very well, and, they became, connected more, and they’re, no longer, an elder, and a hired household helper, instead, they’d, turned into, more like, family to one another…