"A Shawl for Anita” l nodded my head. Perhaps Anita was right l was beginning to understand my mother.

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 Story Reading Report
high school, but her deft hands had skillfully eked out a living for the four of us. She
was good at knitting. That tide us over until the eldest got a diploma of teaching.
Performance Task #4
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 was impatient and jealous. l 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. l felt like shouting at her, calling her names when I
heard her ask.

Mother knitted a shawl for her. Mother could hardly refuse, but l knew that the task
was just too much for her. Her fingers had lost their flexibility; rheumatic pain told on
her knuckles that felt like a million pins pricking. My heart went out to her every time
l saw her painfully knitting needles into the yarn. I never wanted 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 a 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."