Dolores Aveiro “Many neighbors would help my mother with a plate of food, and she would divide it among my 9 siblings and me. She would go to bed without eating” Cristiano Ronaldo gave his mother everything she lacked in her childhood: “My mother is the most important person in my life”

Dolores Aveiro was only 6 years old when she understood what it took to survive in Madeira, Portugal.

Her mother worked as an embroiderer, and when neighbors brought them a plate of food, she would divide it among her eight children without keeping anything for herself.

Many nights she went to bed on an empty stomach. She died at 37, leaving Dolores with a lesson she carried throughout her life: love is sometimes measured by what one goes without so someone else can eat.

Years later, Cristiano Ronaldo heard that story from his own mother. And he decided to break that cycle forever: he dressed her, took her with him to every corner of the world, and gave her the life his grandmother had never been able to have.

“My mother is undoubtedly the most important person in my life; she has given me everything”, the footballer once said. Now you understand why he says it with such certainty.