28/09/2025
STORIES THAT TOUCHES THE HEART
The first time I met Mama Grace, she barely acknowledged my presence. A frail woman in her late seventies, she sat on the worn-out couch by the window, staring outside as if waiting for something or someone who would never return. Her son had hired me to care for her, and from the look in her eyes, she wasn’t too pleased about it.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” she muttered the first day as I set down a plate of warm jollof rice.
I smiled. “I’m not here to babysit, Mama. Just to keep you company.”
She scoffed but took the plate anyway. That was a start.
At first, our days were quiet. I’d clean while she sat in her chair, flipping through old photo albums. Sometimes she hummed, other times she sighed deeply, as if carrying the weight of a lifetime on her shoulders. I could see the loneliness in her eyes. It wasn’t just age that made her fragile it was the absence of the people she once loved.
One afternoon, as I massaged her stiff fingers with shea butter, she suddenly whispered, “I used to have hands like yours… strong, busy hands. Now, look at them.”
“They are still beautiful, Mama,” I said sincerely.
For the first time, she looked at me really looked at me and smiled.
From that day, things changed. She began telling me stories of her childhood in the village, of the man she loved and lost, of the children she raised with everything she had. I realized that beneath her silence was a woman full of wisdom, love, and longing.
One evening, as I helped her to bed, she held my hand and said, “Patience, I know my son pays you, but you… you care like family.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “That’s because you are, Mama.”
She squeezed my hand weakly. “Thank you.”
When she passed a few months later, I felt the loss deeply. But I also felt honored honored to have walked beside her in those last moments, to have been more than a caregiver. To have been family.
And that, I realized, was what caregiving truly meant. Not just tending to needs, but loving with patience, with kindness… with heart.