By Michael Ingram

My mother, a house cleaner, has recently found new houses that she could clean, with younger owners.

But before that happened, she was on the brink of not being able to pay any bills or buy food to support her family.

“Before COVID hit, I had more than 10 houses,” my mother said. “Many of those houses I lost when COVID hit because they were all elderly and were afraid of getting sick from what they heard on the news. In general, I’d say that I lost about 50 percent of my houses.” 

She also added, “I remember walking into the kitchen and seeing the table empty, the fridge nearly cleaned out, the cabinets completely empty.”

“It hurt me, it hurt me as a mother to see my kids and husband eating cup noodles or granola bars every day for 5 weeks.”

My mother said that it was a treat for everyone to go out an eat every two weeks and gave relief to know that through struggling, they had earned an accomplishment.

“It felt bad enough already having this pandemic closing schools all across the world,” my mother said. But, “to lose clients that I’ve worked for and with for many years? It felt terrible at the least, just an insult to injury. I understand why they did it, they were elderly after all.”

“But to say at the very least, I felt my face turn warm in anger but I couldn’t do anything about it because they had their reasons and I respected that.”

Moving away from my mother’s struggles, I also talked to my grandmother and asked her some questions. One of those questions was, “How did it feel to have to rely on food stamps for the first time in awhile to survive?”

“It did not feel normal at all,” my grandmother said. “Having money in your hand and in your pockets and being able to buy your grandchildren food for the week or maybe even a couple was the normal around here.”

“After the pandemic hit, I was getting by with food maybe every two weeks, not the kind we usually got, small meals, microwave meals, cans and other things that I could stock up on.”

For work, my grandmother lost about eight houses – clients – during the pandemic.

But, “compared to COVID, it looks like a joke. Most of my clients are elderly,” my grandmother said. “When COVID first hit, they were OK with me still cleaning. But as COVID got worse, they didn’t want me on their property anymore.”

“The eight houses that I had lost paid good money, which is why I was always able to spoil my grandchildren with anything that they wanted.”