The Help: #4

When my mom and her 5 siblings were growing up they had a figure similar to the ones we see in the book. Her name was Julia. Julia was like a second mother to all the kids and when my cousins and I were born she helped raise us too. Julia has always been a part of my life, when I was born she was already a part of the family and almost all of the memories my mom and her siblings share Julia is in. I see the similarities between Julia’s relationship with my family, but one thing that really disturbed me was how the women in Jackson seemed to recycle their “help.” They would make connections and then fire these women who were part of their lives and family. Julia died a week ago but she would always come to our family events, we would visit her often, and we would talked on the phone. When I was at Julia’s funeral a few days ago her friends, which I didn’t know, came up to me and said they had heard so much about me and that Julia talked about us all the time. It made me feel good to know that we impacted her as much as she impacted all of us in our own way. Julia and my relationship reminded me a lot of the relationship Skeeter had with Constantine, her maid growing up. Skeeter loved Constantine the way every maid in the book wanted to be loved by the children they raised. I know the book was set in the 1960’s which is the time Julia started to work for my mom’s family. It really shows the difference between the North and the South. Constantine was a part of Skeeter’s family but her mom had no problem firing someone that was part of the family. The relationship my family all has with Julia shows how different the times used to be in the 1960’s but also how people in the North dealt with the injustices of the civil rights movement.