A Shawl for Anita

By: Lolita M. Andrada

My mother brought us up single-handedly. It was a Herculean task for a woman so

frail, dealing with three adolescent children. But she managed. She never finished high
school, but her deft hands had skillfully eked out a living for the four of us. She was good at
knitting. That tided us over until the eldest got a diploma of teaching. Then she put up a sari-
sari store to send the other children to college. Mother wanted us all to start a college
degree and she had sacrificed much to see us through.

Mother had a soft heart - especially for Anita. Anita was the youngest, and I, being
the middle child, had always envied her. She was sickly and Mother willingly indulged her.
My sister's whimpers never irked her. She was ever so gentle with her when I impatient and
jealous. I never understood my mother.

My mother who had always been a frail woman was much thinner now. Anita who
was married by now had never stopped being pampered. Her lack of concern for our
mother's failing health was getting on my nerves. I felt like shouting at her, calling her names
when I heard her ask Mother to knit a shawl for her. Mother could hardly refuse, but I knew
that the task was just too much for her. Her fingers had lost their flexibility; rheumatic pain
told on her knuckles that felt a million pins pricking. My heart went out to her every time I
saw her painfully the knitting needles into the yarn.

The rest of us did not want to see Mother lift a finger. She was too old to work, and
we wanted to save her the burden of doing even the lightest household chores. Mother said
she felt useless being cooped up in the house all day, doing nothing. That was before Anita
sweet talked her into knitting her shawl. I was beginning to hate Anita for being so callous.

Knitting the shawl might have been an agony for Mother, but she never showed any
pain. At the end of the day, she would look at her handiwork, a smile on her lips as she held
it against her. Knitting proved to be a slow process, but Mother didn't mind, I did and when
Anita showed up one day to visit Mother I scolded her for being so thoughtless.

Anita touched my arm and in a gentle voice said, "I did it for Mother. That shawl is
giving her reason to live. She was wasting away, didn't you notice? She felt so useless
because she had nothing to do, no matter how small. Mother is one person who prefers to
live her life working. If she stops working, she will stop living."

I nodded my head. Perhaps Anita was right I was beginning to understand my mother.
 Summary

There was a mother who didn't get to finish highschool and had three children. But at the
time, her hands were skillful in knitting that made her eldest child finish college. After that
she puts up a small business so that her other children could also study for college. One of
the mother's children, the second one, was jealous of her younger sibling, Anita, for being
the favorite of their mother, even a small mistake the mother would still be gentle to Anita.
As they grow older, Anita was now married, and then asked her mother to knit her a shawl.
Of course the second child knew it would be a burden for their mother. When she can't take
it anymore, she ran to Anita and asked her if she was that careless of their mother's health.
Anita replied in a gentle voice that, it would waste their mother's life and time without doing
what she loved doing before.