Seventy-two-year-old Hou Ho Chiu-hsiang (侯何秋香) of Chiayi City learned to deal with her own family tragedy by helping people in need through volunteer healthcare service for patients in seriously debilitated conditions.
Her husband, employed by an electricity company, fell to the ground while working on power lines in 2002. He sustained brain trauma, which rendered him in need of constant care.
“At first, I was feeble and became afraid of having to deal with the tragedy alone. Later, my daughter quit her job so she could live at home to care for her father,” Hou Ho said. “I was overcome by stress and worry, which turned into a serious illness due to malnutrition. I was close to dying, but fortunately a capable doctor saved my life.”
After that, she decided to take care of her husband herself, “because I wanted to relieve my daughter and son of the responsibility. They had been taking care of their father.”
Her husband passed away in 2009.
In 2010, Hou Ho joined the Genesis Social Welfare Foundation as a volunteer healthcare worker.
The septuagenarian grandmother has a busy work schedule. For six days a week, from Monday to Saturday, she heads to the local Tzu Chi Foundation in Chiayi City and in the afternoons she assists the Genesis Foundation with another half-day shift of healthcare.
Her job mostly involves going to homes to bathe people with debilitating conditions. When she goes to a patient’s house, she tells her own story of dealing with illness and family tragedies.
It is her way of encouraging the patient’s family members. She always tells them to “face difficulties with a lot of courage” and “learn to let it go.”
She said it is not easy to bathe the patients, because most of the time they use a wheelchair and it takes a big effort to get them into the bathroom.
Hou Ho said that, as a widow, she has survived difficulties and learned to live an enriched life, transforming needing assistance from others into providing help.
“When we receive help from others, we must be grateful and pay back the favor in kind,” she said, urging more people to join her in the volunteer work.
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