The Grandmother
The grandmother in this story is a widow who has had a very difficult life. Like many others in the area around Mount Pinatubo, her family lost everything they had, including two of their babies. They had received 10,000 pesos for their losses, which they used to relocate their family. Her husband had a difficult time finding any kind of work, in the new area. Steady work was unheard of. The money they had received to relocate did not last long as they had two young children to feed and clothe. Ten thousand pesos was only around $230. To help bring in money she would do laundry, clean houses and run errands for people, sometimes working all day, twee hours, for fifty cents. After years of struggling to raise their children and not always making ends meet, her husband, who had finally found a good paying job, died in a horrible workplace accident. The woman received very little compensation for the death of her husband. That was just another cross for to bear.
You might notice that I did not mention anything about the young woman that I talked about earlier in this story helping at anytime during her growing years. I did not mention it because she never helped. Here, in the Philippines, you see girls from the time they can walk trying to help their mothers work around the house. Oftentimes that help can cause more work for the mother, but they try. The girls usually seem to learn from their mistakes and keep working. This child never seemed to care and never tried to help.
After her father's accident, she really went wild, making the lives of everyone around her miserable, blaming her mother for her father dying. What is much worse is the fact that she was destroying herself and did not seem to care. All the grandmother in this story could do was to keep trying.