Saturday 28 July 2012

You is Kind. You is Smart. You is Important.


I'm usually not a "cryer." Unlike my mom, who has cried in pretty much every movie we've ever watched together, I know how to keep it together. This movie however, hit me hard in the heart. The Help is based on the best seller of Kathryn Stockett, which I have yet to read, and really, it was such a wonderful movie. It’s about an author who decides to write a book detailing the lives of African-American maids working for white households and the struggles they go through daily.

As a baby I went through 4 yayas. Yaya Mary, yaya Ludy, yaya Susan, and yaya Myra. The first three yayas I don’t remember much because I was still very young. Yaya Myra however has been my second mom since I was two. The reason why this movie got to me is because growing up, I can’t say I always treated her right. Many times I was a spoiled little daddy’s girl who would throw fits any time I didn’t get what I wanted. Until this day, there are many times she and I fight like cats and dogs because we tend to talk over each other and so we never really get anywhere. A lot of my best friends have seen us together and have all agreed that my yaya and I have the weirdest love-hate relationship. Don’t get me wrong. This was not how I was on a daily a basis! I do have a good side too! It just saddens my heart that I’m not very good at showing her how grateful I am to have her around.

Focusing on the better side of our love-hate relationship, when I was younger yaya My would sleep with me in my room when my parents were on tour and hug me tight when I’d have bad dreams. She would come home every Sunday from her day-off with Fruitella as her pasalubong for me. She would read me books when my mom didn’t have the time to do so, and she would even go swimming with my cousins and me if I begged her hard enough. Day in and day out, she was the one person whose face would always be RIGHT THERE. She was around so much to the point that it would annoy me sometimes and then cause a fight because at the age of five, I thought I needed my privacy.

Everyone knows yaya Myra. My grade school friends, my high school friends, and even my college friends know her. My mom made sure yaya would drop me off and pick me up from school everyday until I went to college. They always tease me nga kasi every time we’re out, mga 11pm pa lang may text na si yaya, “Kiana san ka now? Pls ack” or “Kiana, panu k uwi?” “alam na ni mama u?” When I don’t reply, she calls… angry! AND NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT ANNOYS ME SOMETIMES, it would be a lie to tell you guys I don’t love it when she texts and calls me. It’s just a little reminder that she cares. I could go on and on about how our relationship was and still is, but this post would turn into a book. Today, yaya My has a hard time walking na. I’ve never really asked her what’s going on because I’m scared of what she’ll answer me. It hurts me every time I see her trying to climb from her room on the first floor to my room on the third because I remember how easily she and I would dance around the house when I was younger. She assigned our other maid Clarissa to take care of me now so that she doesn’t really have to leave the first floor anymore.  Yesterday we were in the kitchen (I tweeted about it!) and she just starts asking me questions about boys and school. As usual we had our little ‘ilonggo lesson’ but basically we were just catching up because due to the condition of her knee, we’re never able to chill and make kwento na in my room.

The Help, to me was a wake up call. It was a reminder that these women working in our homes have given up so much to give us the pleasure of living easier lives.  Many of them have left their children to help raise us, and their parents to help take care of our parents. Let’s be more considerate about how they feel! They’ve given up so much for you why not give up a little something for them? I thank God for yaya Myra. With all honesty I have no idea where my cellphone, my flip, or any of my clothes would be without her, and I would not be who I am today had she not taught me everything she did as I was growing up.
 
  
                                   
Annoying yaya while she's trying to work pahahaha. Typical.