A few years ago, I wrote an essay about all why I didn’t feel right about hiring housecleaners. Besides the obvious expenses of having someone else do your dirty work, there were also all kinds of uncomfortable class and race inequities brought out by being the mistress of the house. Having a dirty house was easier than navigating these social land mines.
Well, I have a confession to make: as I’ve gotten busier over the past year, we decided that it’s time to hire professional help. Division of labor, and all. Our neighbors recommended a pair of ladies, and for the most part we’ve been very happy with their cleaning. I get so spoiled with their bi-weekly moppings and scrubbings that I start to really notice the dust bunnies and hard water stains during their off-weeks.
Now, I have an even more awkward thing to talk about. Today, for the first time, the housecleaners broke something, and I didn’t know how to react.
I came back inside and saw a flash of yellow on the kitchen counter. Upon closer inspection, I saw that they were shards of ceramic, from a cross painted by Little Brother at one of those DIY pottery shops. My heart sank a little, seeing the bright colors and childish lettering broken into jagged pieces. It was a rough day, full of minor disappointments that chipped away at my patience and my faith in humanity. I know some people deduct the cost of damage out of the fees they pay their “help”, and it would not be unreasonable for me to do so.
It may be within my rights to react that way, but would it be the right way to act? It wasn’t a Ming vase, just a mass-produced ceramic blank decorated by a kindergartener at a suburban strip mall. And it wasn’t just any tchotchke, but a religious symbol of forbearance and forgiveness. Why couldn’t it have been one of the ceramic kittens or dinosaurs, instead? And why couldn’t the person who broke it have been a friend — or one of my kids’ friends? Instead, it had to be my housecleaner, a person already in the awkward relationship of employer-employee.
God, you are not making things easy for me.
I didn’t know what to do so I ignored it. The housecleaner found me at my computer when she finished.
“Grace? I broke this by accident,” she said, “When I was cleaning the shelf, it fell over.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” I responded, with a smile too rigid. Someday, I hope to know how to respond better to situations like this, but for today, I will also extend grace to myself.
* * *
One year later, those pieces of the cross kept creeping back into my thoughts. During this year’s Lenten season, I decided to finally pursue an idea inspired by a comment from a blog reader. Read Putting Together the Pieces of the Cross to find out how these broken pieces found a new life.
Oh, Grace, this is so beautiful, it really touched my heart. I firmly believe that we often forget to extend some of that wonderful grace to us. Thank you for the reminder. And I am sure that next time you will handle it better, more to your acceptance, though I thought you did just fine. :)
My father often told us that, because we are human and will quite often fall and fail, we do not have the right to punish ourselves.
Happy Easter!
~Virginia
Thank you, Virginia. I’m so glad you could relate, and I love your father’s reminder. Happy Easter to you, too.
Appreciate your honesty. I think you should glue that cross back together as a reminder of grace for yourself and others. I think it’s poetic that she broke a cross. I wonder what she was feeling and what it must have felt like for her to have to tell you. A cross glued together could be a powerful symbol to both of you and to your kids that things/relationships/brokenness can be repaired and restored.
It’s funny, Angela. I swept the pieces into the recycle bin because I didn’t want Little Brother to see them and be upset. Big Brother saw the pieces on the counter and got kind of upset. But Little Brother saw the photo of the broken cross on my computer, anyway, and I explained to him what happened. I’m going to update this with an explanation of how that went. I sort of had an inkling that it would be good to glue the pieces of the cross together and display them that way, but then I thought it would be too much trouble. Your comment has confirmed that idea. I guess I’ll be rooting through the recycling bin today ;)
Good for you hiring a cleaning service! I want to but don’t know if we can afford it or if we can be home to supervise. Sorry about your belongings. The worst part about hiring strangers is that they’ll have to touch your belongings. I think you responded well.
What a lovely post ! You put it together so beautifully and just “made the pieces fit”. Happy weekend, Grace and thanks for sharing this story!