A poor student once took a small job cleaning the house of an elderly woman who lived alone in a narrow alley.
She was frail and barely able to walk. Seeing her struggle, the young man didn’t just do the work he was paid for. He began cooking for her, going to the market, and even taking her to the hospital whenever her health worsened.
Months passed.
Yet the old woman never paid him the money she had promised.
Then one day she died… leaving behind a single letter that would change his life forever.
My name is Diego.
I’m twenty-one years old and a third-year student at a university in Guadalajara.
To cover tuition and everyday expenses, I take any job I can find—tutoring, working in a cafeteria, helping people clean their homes.
That’s how I first met Doña Carmen.
When I arrived at her house for the first time, I was shocked by how fragile she looked.
She was extremely thin. Her hair was completely white, and her hands trembled as they rested on a wooden cane.
Her house was small and worn by time.
Inside were objects that looked as if they belonged to another era: a broken radio, faded photographs hanging on the walls, and a wooden bed whose surface had been worn smooth over the years.
She explained that she suffered from rheumatism and high blood pressure, which made it difficult for her to move around.
All she needed was someone to clean the house once a week.
The job was simple: sweeping, dusting, and washing a few dishes.
She promised to pay me 200 pesos per visit.
For a student like me, that money mattered.
As the weeks passed, I began to notice something else about her life.
Her refrigerator was almost always empty.
Usually there were only a few eggs and a handful of wilted vegetables.
Sometimes her entire meal for the day was nothing more than plain rice with a little sauce.
When I asked why she lived like that, she simply said her children lived far away and she didn’t want to bother them.
I felt sorry for her.
So after finishing the cleaning, I started staying longer.
I would go to the market, buy meat or fish, and cook her a proper meal.
She loved those moments.
Her eyes lit up every time she tasted a bowl of hot broth.
Sometimes, when her joint pain became unbearable, I would personally take her to the public hospital and wait beside her until she received her medicine.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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