upworthy

storycorps

Joy

Janitor and cook stayed to care for residents when nursing home shut down and staff left

Maurice Rowland and Miguel Alvarez refused to abandon the residents who got left behind in the "chaotic mass evacuation."

Image by Carola68 The world is colorful...... from Pixabay

When a nursing home shut down, the janitor and cook stayed with the remaining residents.

True
#WhoWeAre

There are certain moments in life that determine your character. This was definitely one of those moments for Maurice Rowland and Miguel Alvarez.

Rowland was working as a cook and Alvarez as a janitor at an assisted living facility when suddenly they found out that the facility was going to close.

The Valley Springs Manor assisted-living facility was shut down by the California Department of Social Service in October of 2013, prompting a "chaotic mass evacuation" of staff and residents. Staff left because they weren't getting paid, but Rowland and Alvarez stuck around. There were around 16 residents left at the home with nowhere to go and nobody to take care of them. Some of them were sick and bedridden and some had dementia.

Rowland and Alvarez, who have been friends since middle school, had a conversation about what they were going to do. They decided they couldn't in good conscience abandon the residents who were left behind, so for the next several days they stayed and cared for them, making sure they were bathed and fed and got their medications—all without pay.

"I just couldn't see myself going home," Rowland said. "Next thing you know they're in the kitchen trying to cook their own food and burn the place down."

Alvarez said he would go home for one hour a day to take a shower and get dressed and then head back to the facility. His wife was upset at first because he missed a planned family trip during that time, so she drove to the center to see what was more important than time with her and their kids. What she found when she arrived left her "heartbroken," she told SF Gate.

Alvarez told StoryCorps that he'd been abandoned by his parents when he was young and knew how them leaving would make the residents feel. "I didn't want them to go through that," he said.

"If I would have left, I think that would've been on my conscience for a very long time," Rowland added.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The facility had a history of regulatory violations and inadequate care that led to the shut down, but the transition for the residents who needed to be transferred to other facilities was fumbled by the authorities.

"“The Department fell short of its mission to protect the health and safety of residents in Valley Springs Manor,” the Department of Social Services said in a statement after the fact. “The Division erred in not ensuring, through successful engagement with local partners, that relocation arrangements for all of the residents were complete.”

When one resident started to deteriorate, Rowland and Alvarez called 911, which alerted authorities to the situation the men and residents were in. A proper evacuation of residents then began, relieving the men of the duty they'd taken on to care for people who had no one else.

"Even though they wasn't our family, they were kind of like our family for this short period of time," said Rowland.

According to SF Gate, Rowland and Alvarez were honored for their sacrificial service with an award from the American Veterans Association, a certificate of special recognition from Rep. Eric Swalwell's office a commendation from the California Legislature, and a wave of donations from people who were inspired by their selflessness.

""We didn't expect any of this," Alvarez said. "We've never expected anything from anyone in life."

They may not have expected anything, but their big-heartedness paid off not only in recognition and financial support, but in the satisfaction of putting other people's humanity before themselves.


This story originally appeared on 9.29.16 It has since been updated.


From Your Site Articles
humanity
More

100 years after a vicious hate crime, she's telling her great-grandmother's story.

True
#WhoWeAre

Mary Ellen Noone can't look at a bottle of nail polish without seeing red.

Her great-grandmother, Pinky Powell, was born just before the turn of the 20th century. Petite but strong, she often told her great-grandkids about picking 100 pounds of cotton before lunchtime.  

And years after her days in the fields, Powell saw Mary Ellen painting her nails and said:

"You know, there was a time we couldn't wear no fingernail polish."

As a child around 1910, Powell lived on plantation in Alabama and did domestic chores for the white woman of the house. The woman tossed away some of her old perfume and nail polish, so Powell took it home. On Sunday, she sprayed the perfume, painted her nails, and got dressed up for church.

But on Monday, the owner of the general store spotted her nails at the check out.

"What are you doing with your nails painted up like a white woman?" he asked.

Without hesitation, he reached for a pair of pliers and pulled Powell's nails from their beds one by one.

She was a child. A child who wanted a sliver of humanity in a black body. But for this white man, even that was too much. It was an act of violence that left Powell forever scarred in every sense of the word.

Even now, just seeing a jar of red nail polish takes Mary Ellen back to that moment.

It's an inherited trauma she just can't shake.

"I still have that anger inside of me that someone would have that control over one person, just because they wanted to feel like a woman."

Hear the full story of Pinky Powell and the lasting impact her story had on her great-grandaughter, Mary Ellen Noone:

Badge
Templeton World Charity Foundation
Templeton World Charity Foundation
More

Her son was murdered in 1993. Today, she’s helping his killer rebuild his life.

True
#WhoWeAre

In February 1993, Mary Johnson was at work when she got the horrible news: Her son, Laramiun, had been murdered.

He'd been at a party when a fight broke out, and he wound up dead.

The killer? A 16-year-old boy named Oshea Israel.

At the trial, Mary felt only rage. "In court, I viewed Oshea as an animal," she told The Forgiveness Project.

"The root of bitterness ran deep, anger had set in, and I hated everyone. I remained like this for years, driving many people away."

But one day nearly 12 years later, she read something that made her see her anger in a new way.

It's been a long, difficult journey, but today Mary and Oshea have grown quite close. Photo by Brian Morgan, used with permission.

"Tell me the name of the son you love so,
That I may share with your grief and your woe."

So goes the poem "Two Mothers" about a conversation between the mothers of Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot, sharing in their grief over losing their sons, all the while not knowing who the other was.

"It was such a healing poem all about the commonality of pain, and it showed me my destiny," Mary said.

She decided then that it wasn't enough to tell herself she had forgiven Oshea. It wasn't enough to try to block out the memories and never think of him again. No, to forgive Oshea — really forgive him — she'd have to embrace him with love. Help him get his life together.

It was the only way to get her own life back.

"Forgiveness isn't forgetting," she said in a phone interview. "People need to learn that forgiveness is for them, not the person that hurt them."

So she went to the prison to meet Oshea face to face for the first time since the trial.

It wasn't easy. And to this day, Mary says many people still don't understand her capacity to embrace her son's murderer. But what followed was an inspiring story of healing and forgiveness of the highest order.

Listen to Mary and Oshea talk about their unlikely bond in this inspiring video:

Trending Stories