Ailing Mother Who Inspired Outpouring of Support Dies

Her doctors tried to be helpful a year ago after they diagnosed Rosa Varela’s illness as terminal.

Now was the time to take a vacation, to do what she had always wanted to do, they said.

“I am,” replied the 44-year-old Monterey Park mother of four, shaking her head. “I’m watching out for my kids.”

Having kept that vow, Varela died Friday of cancer. On Wednesday, her children will bury her in Whittier.

The end followed a painful series of family meetings around the kitchen table earlier this year, where Varela shared her dreams for her children’s future. She lined up new homes for her three youngest children and quietly worked out the details for her funeral with her oldest daughter.

She struggled for months on donations from former Caltrans co-workers while waiting for state disability and retirement checks to begin arriving. By the time they did, she was behind on payments and bill collectors were trying to seize the kitchen table and other family furniture.

An August story in The Times outlining Varela’s ordeal prompted more than $40,000 in donations--plus the family’s first vacation together in years.

The generosity of strangers astounded her, Varela said in late September after Monterey Park residents and businesses added the final $10,000 to her fund.

“These gestures on the part of people who have never seen us and probably never will are very positive lessons in life for my children,” she said.

Those who knew Varela were not surprised that her last days were spent thinking not about her health but about her children’s well-being.

As a single parent determined to stay off welfare, she once worked three jobs at a time to keep food on the table and a roof over her children’s heads. She had settled her family into a comfortable new apartment and worked her way up to an important job as administrator of a Caltrans staff of 12 involved in freeway earthquake repairs when she learned a year ago she was ill.

“We’re glad she’s not going to have to suffer any more,” Caltrans secretary Shalena Crawford said Monday. Crawford had helped coordinate co-workers’ donations and later collect newspaper readers’ contributions.

Daughters Ann-Marie, 13, and Ruth, 23, and sons Abran, 15, and Rudy, 17, said a rosary will be said for their mother tonight at 7 at Turner & Stevens Mortuary in Alhambra. Mass will be celebrated at 9 a.m. Wednesday at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal Catholic Church in Montebello.

Varela will be buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park’s Green Garden, 3900 Workman Mill Road.

Just as she planned.