This morning, as I prepared to walk through the gate that separates our yard from the street, my eyes fell upon the drive.  It was littered with dust, broken twigs, fallen leaves and flower petals.  I hadn’t noticed this before and instinctively wondered from whence it came.  I looked up at the trees above and out towards the street and found no immediate explanation.  And then it hit me.  The reason I had never seen anything on our perfectly clean drive is that someone had been keeping it that way… Edisa, our live-in maid.  She returned to her home country nearly a week ago.  With each passing day, her absence is becoming remarkably apparent.

We are fortunate to live in a country where having a maid is mainstream.  Even families with modest income have help.  I like the idea. We take care to contribute to society through our work and through raising our children.  We come home, and someone contributes to society by taking care of our home, our meals and us.  Everyone has a job.

When we first moved to Malaysia 3 years ago, and got a maid, I thought I had died and gone to dreamland.  I’d come home from work to a clean house and the smells of dinner cooking.  I’d look around and realize there was nothing that I had to do. For the first time since having children, I had time to read for pleasure.  I noticed that when I hung out with the kids, I wasn’t thinking about all the other things “I had to do,”.. There were none. 

I thought, “Why don’t more of us have house help in The States?”  Most people I know have no house help, or at best, someone who comes once a week.  That was a luxury I aspired to back in the Good ‘Old US of A: a clean home 1x a week.  Even with that simple luxury, we would scramble home each afternoon after a full day of work and worry about making dinner, emptying the trash, doing the laundry, doing the dishes, changing the sheets, sweeping the floor, etc.  We were a family of four, 2 children, 2 tired zombies masquerading as parents.

I’ve known people who will have a beautiful car and a hefty car payment, one that could easily cover several days of house help a month…and sometimes even the salary of a full time live in made. Where I come from in California, spending our hard earned money on a car and the big mortgage is a choice that many people thoughtlessly make. Flashy ads and celebrity profiles tell us that the nicer our car and the bigger our home, the higher our status and quality of life.  In fact, achieving this “American Dream’” often raises financial stress and lowers our quality of life. Knowing this, I still wanted that big house in the suburbs.  I even came close to trading my sanity, financial stability, and free time to get it.

After 3 months with a maid in Malaysia, however, my former desperate wishes to trade it all for a home on a tree-lined street seem ludicrous.  Having a maid has done more for our quality of life and inner peace than any car or home ever has.  I promised myself that when I return to The States, I will use my hard earned dollars for house help before making a down payment on a car. I hope someone helps me keep this promise.

It’s been 2 weeks now since our lovely maid left us.  She has returned to the baby and husband she left behind to better her financial situation. As I carefully pile another tissue on our overflowing trash can, I mentally thank her for taking care of us and wish her well.