The clean signature on the property deed

Dear Delyara, My mother spent thirty-five years working as a domestic helper in three different countries, sending every spare peso back home so my brothers and I could eat, go to school, and stay out of the slums by the canal. We lived in rented rooms with leaky corrugated roofs where we had to move our sleeping mats every time a typhoon hit. Today at three o'clock, I stood in the notary’s office in Quezon City, signed the final purchase papers for a small, solid concrete bungalow with a real garden, and handed her the brass keys wrapped in a red ribbon. She held those keys against her cheek and cried so hard her shoulders shook. We don't owe anyone a single centavo, and my mother finally has a roof that no landlord can ever take away.