Why I Love My Cleaning Lady

We have had a cleaning lady, Alla, since about 2006.  We had to lay her off when Brian got laid off in fall 2008, but she was "recalled" in the fall of 2009 when his work started picking back up.  She is a pleasant, serious Polish immigrant lady in her mid-fifties and she cleans my house far, far better than I ever would.  She comes on  Wednesdays while we are all at school/work, and it's like the good fairies came in and worked their magic all over the house.  When I walk in, it smells clean.  There are fresh vacuum tracks in the carpet.  The faucets are all shiny.  There are no piles of junk laying everywhere.  The microwave doesn't have exploded Chef Boyardee ravioli inside it anymore.  The beds are all made up, smooth and fresh and I can hardly wait to climb into my clean sheets.  Thanks to Alla, Wednesday afternoons are my favorite part of the week.

She will leave me little notes in funny European printing with ESL spelling/grammar, "Plese to buy Soft Scrub" or "You are needing paper towel".  Sometimes she comes later or I am home on break and then she will tell me things.  She can't pronounce 'Joan' however, and she calls me 'John'.  One day this past summer she said to me, "Last week I am cleaning your ceiling fan. It was too dirty, I must clean it."   I said to her, "Alla, I'm so sorry, I know it was filthy!  I didn't know how to clean it on the high ceiling, how in the world did you do it?"  She replied gravely, "It was very hard, John.  I am standing on chair and it is still too low, so I am getting small stool and put on chair and get long duster.  Is very dangerous, but fan is too dirty, I must clean."  I squeaked out, "thank you", but I was envisioning coming home to find her lifeless body on the living room floor under my filthy ceiling fan and living with the guilt that my dirt cost this poor beautiful woman her life.

Alla's grandson is about Thomas's age and she has always really liked Thomas just because he reminds her of her grandson.  Once she had just cleaned the boys' room and Thomas came running in from outside, ripped off all this clothes, chucked them all over his room, threw on his bathing suit, and was half way out the door when Alla yelled, "TOMAS!  YOU ARE PICKING UP YOU CLOTHES!  I AM JUST TO FINISH CLEANING YOU ROOM AND YOU ARE MAKING MORE CLOTHES!"  Thomas sheepishly turned around and picked up all his mess and apologized and left quietly.  I smirked from my couch, not having to say a word. 

One time my mom and dad were at my house on a Wednesday before I got home from school.  Alla said to my mom, "You are very proud of John."  Mom said yes, she was.  Alla said, "Her kids, they are good kids."  Mom said, yes, they are.  Alla said, "This house, it is full of love.  I am finding the notes."  Mom asked her what she meant and she showed her... the sticky note on my mirror from Tinsaye that said, "I love you Mom" and Solomon's drawing in his room of our family that said "I love my family".  When I started looking around, I noticed the 'love notes' were everywhere!  I never really noticed them much before.  I was too focused on the piles of laundry, papers, shoes, and dirt.

I love Alla because she cleans my house and helps me maintain my sanity.  But I really love her because she reminds me that every house she cleans is messy, but not every house she cleans is full of love.