*One Act of Kindness | Maya Tevet Dayan | 6 Minutes on Friday | 13.2.2026*
On Tuesday this week, Nancy left the country. She left after 13 years of work, after moving between countless homes and families, caring for teenagers and the elderly, beginning to suffer from medical problems and undergoing a series of surgeries, and then shifting to other jobs - event halls, cooking.
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She lived in so many houses - sometimes in the homes of the families who employed her, sometimes in rented apartments in south Tel Aviv, sometimes with six roommates, sometimes renting just a bed in an apartment for weekends. In all those 13 years she never had a home of her own, a room of her own, furniture. Only herself and the few bags that traveled with her from place to place.
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She was 32 when she arrived. And 45 when she left. At first she still thought about love, about a family, about children. Later she thought only about children. And then they removed her uterus and she said there were enough children in her family back home, eight nieces and nephews, and to all of them she would send money and gifts. Sometimes she sent them everything she earned.
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I met her when she was 35. Through the phone. She was the Filipina who came to care for my grandmother, Savta Laika, who had always been healthy and suddenly began to decline. It happened so quickly that I didn’t have time to get myself there myself and arrive. We were living in Canada then and I was at the beginning of a pregnancy. I bought a ticket for two days later. But my grandmother was sinking. At some point she could no longer speak on the phone, and the caregiver who had come to tend to her began answering the calls. That is how I met Nancy.
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I found myself speaking morning and evening with a Filipina woman who told me every single thing that had happened to my grandmother that day. How do you have the strength to tell me everything? I apologized to her. She had enough work there. “Because she’s your grandmother,” she answered me. “Grandmother is like God. It’s sacred.”
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On the morning of my flight, my grandmother was already lying in bed, unresponsive. Just in case, I recorded a long message for her. A farewell message from a granddaughter to the grandmother who raised her. Who took her on journeys around the world. Who educated her. Studied with her. Believed in her, even when the granddaughter did not believe in herself. What a grandmother Savta Laika had been, how much love and devotion. I hoped she would hear my voice. I also told her, wait for me, I’m on my way. I’m leaving so I can make it in time.
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I sent that recording and hoped the Filipina caregiver would have enough patience to play such a long message for my grandmother. And I left for the airport. Bags, pregnancy, the pain of the approaching farewell. Those were terrible days.
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And what happened next I will never forget as long as I live.
Nancy sent me a message.
It was a video.
In it you could see Nancy playing my message to Savta Laika. Long minutes. My voice carried through the room. The phone held to my grandmother’s ear. And she in her bed, still within white sheets, her eyes that had been closed for days.
Until the very end of the message when she suddenly nodded. You can see it in the video. My grandmother nods.
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I watched that video and burst into tears.
My grandmother heard me.
And a Filipina woman I did not know filmed it patiently, from beginning to end, and handed me that moment.
A woman who believes that a grandmother is sacred.
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It was our last moment together.
When I landed in Israel, 24 hours later, they told me that my grandmother, Savta Laika, had just passed away. I did not make it in time to see her. The voice message I sent had been, in retrospect, our final conversation.
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I only met Nancy for the first time during the shiva.
In fact, we met after she had already done me a kindness. One of the greatest kindnesses of my life. After she gave me and my grandmother final moments together against all odds. You are an angel, I told her. “Angel?” she asked. “No, no. After my father was sick and died and I couldn’t reach him, I promised him that from now on I would help others, and through each person I am caring a little for my father.”
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And that was it. From then on, a covenant was forged between us. A covenant of kindness.
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Ten years have passed since that story. I met her on every visit we made to Israel. She would visit me from Netanya. From Hadera. From Be’er Sheva. From some kibbutz. I accompanied her to medical tests and to the hospital. I spoke with doctors who were impatient with her. Later with her lawyer, against an employer who had exploited all her money. And she, every time something happened in our family, would arrive on her own initiative. Simply show up and ask what was needed.
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She taught me what her father taught her: that even when you have nothing, the most important thing is to be generous.
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She said it, but she also showed it. Because she never had anything, and she was always so generous with that nothing.
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On Tuesday morning Nancy boarded a flight to the Philippines with a stopover in Dubai. She could barely breathe from excitement. At the airport she photographed a long line of Filipinos, excited like her, returning to their families. A line of people thanks to whom we live better. Die better. She had not seen her mother in 13 years. She dreams of opening a small restaurant in her city. At home her niece's newborn is already waiting for her. “Now I’m a grandmother myself,” she smiled. Forty-five, with the face of a girl. Four foot six.
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Later she sent a photo from there. Tired and excited. Several nieces and nephews and her mother in the background.
And I also saw what cannot be seen in the photo: a long, transparent thread stretched between us. Though she cared for my grandmother only three weeks, long ago. Unforgettable. A thread of kindness.
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I wish us all Shabbat Shalom,
and may we know acts of kindness toward one another,
*Maya Tevet Dayan*
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