Hector had been hearing it from family members: “Hector, you’d be a natural at professional senior care. You have a big heart and a lot of patience for people.” So, in February 2019, Hector went online, found Home Instead® of Naperville and joined the award-winning franchise. He has consistently scored high marks with his clients, their families and the Home Instead staff. In October 2023, Assistant Human Resources Manager Julia Mandujano announced Hector had been honored as the franchise’s Care Professional of the Quarter.
“The idea of doing this job all started when my family told me I should go for it. I had enjoyed being around senior loved ones,” recalled Hector, who looked in on his godparents nearly every week or whenever he had a chance until they passed away in their 80s. His godmother died in 2022; his godfather died in 2016. “I also sat with my sister-in-law’s mother and kept her company. I have taken care of my cousin’s children. I am a dad to a precious daughter. It felt good to do these things.”
Feel-good moments and job fulfillment with Home Instead clients and their families have lasted a lot longer than Hector had initially figured. He admitted: “I had planned to stay at Home Instead for only two years.” For Hector, the memories never stopped.
“I created a bond with a family who was shocked at how their senior loved me from the start. He and I went back and forth in our conversations. It really was something because he had quite a sense of humor. He had a pained look on one occasion, so I asked him, ‘Do you need more painkiller?’ He said, ‘Yes. My wife talks too much.’ I couldn’t help but chuckle because I figured he’d been saving that line for the right time. In all truthfulness, they had a great marriage. They had been married 71 years,” Hector said.
“My client was in hospice. The doctors thought he might last only until the Fourth of July in 2021, but he lasted until Aug. 29. I spent four years with him. Every Sunday, I brought my air fryer, and I’d make chicken wings with my special recipe that includes olive, garlic and paprika. The family thought I should just move in because I’d bring the air fryer and other things. I tried to keep him going. I held his hand. You do get attached. I get attached to all clients.”
Hector also had a blind client who “was a nice guy with a loving family.” Hector explained: “He trusted only me as an outside helper. At the end, they transferred him to a facility, and I visited him as a friend and wasn’t working with him. Actually, I was visiting him when he died, which felt like it was meant to be. Later, after he had passed away, I ran into his family in the grocery store, and they invited me to come over for dinner.”
Hector had an unusual hospice client situation where he didn’t flinch. “It turned out to be a woman client who didn’t want a male Care Pro at first, but I won her over. She got to know me,
liked me and kept me as a Care Pro. Overall, I know how to care for hospice clients. I try to make them happy before they die. I carefully use humor – timing is everything – and that humor often takes the edge off for a while. I do treasure my job. I try to be really observant with my clients. I see things and get new ideas of how to lift up my clients’ spirits while I care for them. I try something different and take risks to please them.”
For one client, the losses in his life were too hard to take. “His son passed away before my client did, then his beloved dog also died. I think those two sad things made it much more difficult emotionally for him to live on. It was so sad, and there wasn’t much you could do for him in terms of cheering him up,” Hector said.
For Hector, the fulfillment of a job well done overtakes the sting of losing clients.
“I like Home Instead. Communication is good. Everyone on the Home Instead staff makes me so comfortable. They are extremely generous. They have a good sense of humor,” he said. “They are flexible with my schedule, and that is something that I need because I take care of my special-needs daughter. Because of the care of my beautiful daughter, I became a much more patient person. She has made me a better Care Pro, and that’s all I strive to do – be better.”
Hector recently came across a proverb by an unknown author that aptly speaks to what he does: “Sometimes all you can do is not think, not wonder, not imagine, not obsess. Just breathe, and have faith that everything will work out for the best.
Home Instead Care Professionals are screened, trained and insured. For inquiries about employment, please call (630) 637-3360 or apply online. For further information about Home Instead, visit our website.