“Don’t hold a grudge against your dad. But promise me… someday we’ll show them that I’m not a burden. That I’m a blessing.”
Year 1995. Eп хпa pequeqЅeña casa de adobe y lámiпa eп хп pυeblo hυmilde del iпterior de México, ciпco bebés llorabaп al хпísoпo.
María Guadalupe had just given birth to quintuplets. She was extremely thin, pale, and had nothing to eat.
Instead of being happy, her husband Ramó was furious.
“Ci-sco?! María Guadalupe, ci-sco?!” shouted Ramón as he gathered his things. “We already have so much to eat! And now ci-sco?! We’re going to starve to death!”
“Ramo, or the abandoned ones,” pleaded María Guadalupe while carrying two babies and the other three were on the mat. “Help me. Let’s fight together. We’re going to make it.”
“No!” Ramó pushed María Guadalupe. “I don’t want this life! I want to get ahead! Those children are a burden! They are a curse on my life!”
He took the little savings that Maria Guadalupe kept under her pillow—the money that was meant to buy milk.
“Ramo! That money is for the children!”
“This is my payment for the harm you caused me!”
Ramó left. He took a truck to Mexico City. He didn’t look at his wife or his five children. He was only thinking about himself.
GETTING UP ALONE
María Guadalupe’s life became hell.
To support his five children (Juan, José, Francisco, Pedro and Gabriel), he worked washing clothes in the mornings, selling at the market in the afternoons and washing dishes at a restaurant at night.
The neighbors criticized her. “There goes the old hag. So many children and her husband left her.”
But María Guadalupe laughed.
Every night, before going to sleep in his cramped room, he would say to his children:
“Don’t hold a grudge against your dad. But promise me… someday we’ll show them that I’m not a burden. That I’m a blessing.”
The five brothers grew up intelligent, hardworking, and God-fearing. They saw their mother’s sacrifice. That motivated them to study diligently, even though sometimes there was only salt on their plate.
THE RETURN OF THE SELFISH ONE (2025)
Thirty years later.
Ramó was 60 years old. His dream of prospering in Mexico City did not come true. He became addicted to vices, fell ill, and now lived in misery. He had no family because his lover had also abandoned him when he ran out of money.
He suffered from renal insufficiency and needed a large amount of money for an operation.
One day he saw the newspaper news:
“MOTHER OF THE YEAR: MARIA GUADALUPE HERNANDEZ, WILL BE RECOGNIZED AT THE GRAND HOTEL IN MEXICO CITY.”
Ramón’s eyes opened wide. María Guadalupe! His wife! And the photo looked different.
“I’m already rich…” Ramó murmured. “I have the right. I’m the father. I can ask for money for the operation. I’m sure he’ll see me.”
He dressed as best he could (although the clothes were old) and headed to the Grand Hotel in Mexico City.
LΑ GRΑN CELEBRΑCIÓN
Upon arriving at the hotel, a guard stopped him.
“Sir, your invitation?”
“I don’t have it! I’m the husband of the homemated woman! María Guadalupe Hernández! Let me pass!” shouted Ramó.
Because of the scandal, an elegant older lady emerged, adorned with jewels and with the bearing of a lady. It was María Guadalupe.
“Ramó?” asked María Guadalupe, surprised.
“María Guadalupe!” Ramó ran and knelt before her. “Forgive me! I was wrong! I’ve returned, María Guadalupe! Let’s rebuild the family. I’m sick… I need your help.”
The guests murmured. So this was the husband who abducted them.
María Guadalupe looked at Ramó. There was no anger in her heart, but neither was there love.
“Ramo,” he said calmly. “Thirty years. Not even a letter. And now that you need money, you come back?”
“I’m still their father!” Ramó justified. “Where are my children? I want to see my children! I’m sure you’ll understand!”
Suddenly the lights went out. A spotlight shone on the stage.
“Do you want to see your children?” María Guadalupe asked. “There they are.”
THE FIVE “POSITIONS”
Uпo por хпo sЅbieroп al escenпario ciпco hombres elegaпtes y exitosos.
Jua – Dressed in a judge’s robe. “I am Judge Jua Herádez. The youngest magistrate of the Court of Appeals.”
José – Police uniform full of decorations. “I am General José Hernández. Chief of Police of Mexico City.”
Francisco – Wearing an executive suit. “I am Mr. Francisco Hernández, CEO of Hernández Construcción, the company that built this hotel.”
Pedro – Coп sotaпa. “I am Father Pedro Herпáпdez. A priest who helps in orphanages and care homes.”
Gabriel – Doctor’s coat. “I am Dr. Gabriel Hernández. The most renowned phrenic in Latin America.”
Ramó was petrified. The five children he had called a “burden” and “cursed” were now pillars of society.
Ramó climbed onto the stage, trembling. “H-children… it’s me… your dad…”
Gabriel (Dr. Hernández) approached. He reviewed the medical file that Ramó was carrying.
“Dad,” said Dr. Gabriel. “I saw your name on the list of patients who need a kidney transplant at my hospital.”
“Yes, son!” exclaimed Ramó happily. “You’re the doctor! Save me! Operate on me! I’m your father!”
Dr. Gabriel smiled bitterly.
“Do you remember 1995?” Gabriel asked. “When Mom begged you to leave the money to buy milk for us. But you took it and left.”
“Because I didn’t have milk, I got seriously ill. I almost died of dehydration. Mom sold her blood to cure me.”
The other brothers approached.
Judge Jua: “According to the law, the abduction is a crime. But we are not going to prosecute you. Because life has already punished you more severely.”
Mr. Francisco: “You ask for money? I could give you millions. But my money is only for you to believe in me, my friend, because I was going to give you nothing.”
Father Pedro: “I forgive you, Dad. I will pray for your soul. But that doesn’t mean we’ll let you disturb Mom’s peace again.”
Gabriel rushed to his father.
“Dad, I’m the best specialist for your illness. Only I can save you.”
Ramó knelt down. “Please, son… do it.”
Gabriel hit his head.
“As a doctor, I swore to cure everyone. I will operate on you. I will save your life.”
Ramó’s face lit up. “Thank you! Thank you, son!”
“But,” Gabriel continued, “after you recover, don’t ever show your face to us again. This operation is the last help we will give you. With this, we repay the life you gave us. From tomorrow on, we will be strangers.”
The operation was performed. Ramó was saved.
Upon waking up in the hospital, María Guadalupe and her five children were already there.
They only left him the hospital bill marked as “PAID IN FULL” and a small envelope.
Inside the envelope there were 500 pesos.
The exact amount he stole from María Guadalupe in 1995 before abdicating them.
Ramó left the hospital with life in his body, but dead in his soul. He saw on television and in the newspapers the success of his children, but he could only watch from afar.
He would forever carry the remorse that the five “charges” he discarded in the past were ones that could have sustained him in his old age.
The father who called his five children a “curse”… 30 years later he came back to find them when they became powerful.
Year 1995.
In a small, nearly dilapidated wooden house in a remote provincial village, five cries could be heard simultaneously. It wasn’t an exaggeration. They were five newborn babies crying with all their might, as if the whole world knew their arrival wouldn’t be easy.
Maria lay on an old bamboo bed, sweaty, pale, and completely exhausted. She had just given birth to quintuplets.
Five.
Five small bodies wrapped in old blankets, placed on a bed on the floor.
The house smelled of poverty, of tiredness… and worry.
Maria could barely hold her head up. Her arms trembled as she carried two of the babies. The other three were still crying on the floor, searching for warmth, milk… and perhaps a little luck in a life that was just beginning.
But instead of joy, a furious scream erupted from inside the house.
“Five!? Maria, five!?” roared Ramon.
The man paced back and forth, stuffing clothes into an old bag. His face was filled with rage, as if the babies were a punishment rather than a blessing.
“We can barely feed one mouth!” he shouted, banging his fist on the table. “And now five more?! We’re going to starve!”
Maria looked up, tears running down her cheeks.
“Ramon… please… don’t leave us,” she pleaded weakly. “Help me. We can do this together. We’ll work… we’ll get through this…”
But Ramon was no longer listening.
For him, those five children were not a source of hope. They were a problem.
One peso.
A chain.
“I don’t want this life!” she shouted as she closed her bag. “I want to get ahead! I want to be somebody! These kids are a curse!”
The words fell on the small house like knives.
Maria wept silently, hugging the babies.
Then something worse happened.
Ramon walked to the bed, lifted the pillow, and took out a small envelope.
It was the money that Maria had carefully saved.
The money to buy milk for the babies.
“Ramon! That money is for the children!” Maria cried desperately.
But Ramon just smiled contemptuously.
“Consider it payment for all the trouble you gave me.”
And without looking back, he left the house.
That same night he took a bus to Manila.
He didn’t look back.
Not even once.
Behind him were a frail woman… and five crying babies.
The years that followed were a true hell for Maria.
No husband. No money. No help.
But with five mouths to feed.
In the morning she washed clothes for other families.
In the afternoon he sold vegetables at the market.
At night she washed dishes in a small restaurant.
He slept only a few hours, and yet every morning he got up to fight again.
The neighbors weren’t helping.
Many mocked her.
“Look… here comes the cat with her five kittens,” they said, laughing.
“That’s why her husband left her. Too many children.”
But Maria never answered.
He never gave up.
Every night, when the five children settled into the small room where they barely fit, she would hug them and say something that would mark their lives forever.
“Don’t hate your father,” she whispered.
The children didn’t understand why.
But Maria continued:
“Promise me something… one day we’re going to show the world that you are not a burden. You are a blessing.”
The years passed.
The five children grew up witnessing their mother’s sacrifice.
They grew up hungry many times.
There were days when the only food was rice with salt.
But they also grew up with discipline, education… and a silent dream: to change their family’s destiny.
Thirty years later…
The world was no longer the same.
And neither were those five babies who were once called a “curse”.
Meanwhile, in another part of the country, an elderly man stared at a newspaper with trembling hands.
His name was Ramon.
And what he saw in that newspaper left him completely paralyzed.