Finding Fulfillment in Caring for Others

“I want to be a nurse. I always wanted to be a nurse. This is my time to do this.” This is Gladys, a clinical director at an assisted living community in Minnesota, and she did just that, but not for the reasons you might expect.

Gladys’s journey into caregiving is rooted in her personal and family experiences. Born and raised in the Philippines, she initially pursued engineering, but that was never her plan—it was her father’s goal for her. After moving to the States in 1990, she shifted away from that pursuit and started taking nursing classes.

What sparked Gladys’s interest in nursing was visiting her aunt who worked as a nurse, and seeing the fulfillment that came from helping others. “I loved seeing her because she was always so happy helping people,” she continues, “She was always great. Every time she saw me, she was busy. But then she always had that smile on her face.” Her aunt’s compassion and joy for her work left a lasting impression on Gladys, prompting her to follow a similar path in nursing and, ultimately, long term care.

For Gladys, caregiving became more than just a profession; it was a way to connect to her family and provide meaningful support to those in need. “Going to work, I kind of treated the residents as my grandparents, and I enjoyed it,” she shares. “They had all these stories to tell me, and I missed my grandparents, so that kind of filled the gap at that time.”

Gladys’s story aligns with many caregivers who find purpose in serving and connecting with the senior community. As she puts it, “You’re making a difference in someone’s life, someone’s life who are numbered, they’re in their golden years. So you want them to have the best life that they can have.”

It’s clear that Gladys’s love and respect for the community she serves is as alive today as it was in those formative experiences. One moment, in particular, shows the extent to which she, and her entire staff of caregivers, were willing to go to make a resident’s wishes come true: “We had a resident who was turning 100 years old a while ago, and her last wish before she turned 100 was to get in her swimsuit and swim in our pool. We made that happen,” Gladys fondly recalls, “That smile on her face, I mean, that’s something I could never forget.”