I had a fond memory of my godmother, she is not married as well as her other sisters so when I was a kid I only have one person to go to in a hope to get my Christmas gift so I asked my mother why I only have one godmother plus she is not married? Well mother just told me that it is not the quantity of godparents she was looking for but the quality of them for us her children to have.
My godmother's income source back in the day was selling food in a cart at our primary school where her sister was a teacher of grade 2 pupils. We buy from her at recess time and what she sells are always sold-out as she has the best food to offer for the pupils to purchase at recess time. Native rice cakes, rice gruel, and stir-fried noodles plus some junk foods that she packs herself we call "Chizcarls".
She is also a vendor of sugar cane that has to be stripped with its thick skin before giving it piece by piece to the buyers which I missed munching on today. Sometimes I would refrain from having it stripped and and would use my old trusty teeth to do the job. There was a moment on my birthday she gave me one whole log of sugar cane which I am so happily to receive, one of the best gifts, a sugarcane! when I was just a little fellow.
But when was about ten to eleven years old some of her relatives came to ask her to go to the US to live there. Maybe the immigration of the US is still not strict during those years of 1987-88 as she was easily accepted in the US. She lived with a priest as far as I can remember and later the relatives that brought her there already passed and now she was left tending by herself with no relatives around serving to the house of the priest.
Now I really have no news about her except from the last one that she lived to serve as a household help to a priest in Chicago. I was able to talk to her about more than twenty years ago, she said that it was so cold in Chicago as it was already winter there that time plus she told me too that she doesn't want to go back here and push a cart anymore.
She is just so wise to never come back because life is hard here compared to a place where the people in my country are just dreaming to go to for work or to reside. I am happy now that even though missed a lot of gifts from her she is maybe doing fine. Maybe she is just used to or happy with her place in Chicago, she was one of the best people that I had ever known so I just hope God would continue to bless my godmother named Bessie.