A turning point in my grandma´s life

Ilustración de : Raquel Díaz Reguera

A turning point in my grandma´s life

In the middle of a dictatorship, some year in de mid 40s, there was a woman whose dreams were big enough to confront an oppressive, misogynist system. Her name was and still is Maria Teresa Tejedor Rodríguez, my grandmother.

She was born in the bossom of a working class family who migrated to “the Américas” looking for a better life, only to come back just before the burst of a cruel, devastating civil war in which she witnessed betrayal, murder, the loss of freedom and the last ashes of a country which one was a prosperous empire, lost in the winds of fascism.

Notwithstanding, in her early twenties she did something praiseworthy. She decided to be one of the first women to escape her destiny. Not only did she move from her small village to a town and live by herself in an apartment, she even created her own business without the help of a man. She was able to manage her own money, make her own choices and enjoy her freedom before getting married and creating a family.

Nowadays, at the age of 91 and a widow, she lives in an anonymous way. She runs into a lot of people every day but none of them knows her story and she does not even realize that she set an example for everybody. At this moment, the only reminder that she had of what she did is a clock that she took with her when she left home. She still looks after it with melancholy remembering the old times, a clock that she will still be there when she will not. But there is also something about her that will always be alive and it is the hope, the inspiration and the equalitarian society that we have today, thanks to hardworking women like her who did not submit to the oppression and beliefs of her time.

Redacción de Marina Henneford Sánchez
                                           2º Bachillerato

Ilustración de Raquel Pérez reguera