María Dolores was just 5 years old when her mother died. Poverty forced her father to send her, along with her siblings, to an orphanage in Madeira, Portugal.
She returned home at 9, but more hardship and abuse were waiting for her there. At 13 she left school to weave wicker baskets and help survive.
She married José Dinis Aveiro at 18, who returned from the Angola war with wounds that never healed: he fell into alcoholism and she became the family’s sole provider, working as a domestic worker and cook to feed her four children.
On February 5, 1985, the youngest of them was born: Cristiano Ronaldo. Dolores later faced two breast cancers and a stroke, but she never stopped being there. Today they call her ‘Mother Courage,’ and the one who saw her go hungry for her children is now proof that that sacrifice was worth every second. 🙏
