I STAND and watch as she does her craft on a wheelchair that's quite big for her birdlike frame.
She adds a length of chain to the jump ring attached to a crucifix she's holding and closes it. She then "builds" the center by attaching three small jump rings to each side of the center, adding a length of chain to each, and then closing each jump ring securely.
Beginning with the chain attached to the crucifix, she adds one "Our Father" bead, opens the other end of the eye pin, and adds a length of chain. She adds three "Hail Mary" beads and leaves the last eye pin open, then adds a length of chain to attach the next "Our Father" bead.
After making sure all eye pins are securely closed, she looks up and smiles at me.
Dionisia Portillo Lozada may have turned 100 years old on Nov. 27 but she still makes rosaries that she gives as presents to relatives, friends and strangers. This and more make her everybody's Lola Doni.
Lola Doni's piety is inborn. Early in her life she wanted to be a nun, a dream she pursued by paying the price of leaving Tago, her birthplace in Surigao del Sur, and be separated from her family at a young age to be a graciada--a working student with exceptional intelligence--at the St. Catherine School in Carcar, Cebu.
100-percent grade
There she finished high school with honors in 1926, even earning a grade of 100 percent in some subjects.
Lola Doni was all set to enter the nunnery in 1934, but her parents, Laureano Portillo and Facunda Prado, intervened. And so she went home and taught at the Santa Teresa School in Tandag, Surigao del Sur.
A year later, she transferred to the Purisima School in Tago and met Tomas C. Lozada, who became her husband on Dec. 7, 1935.
In 1944, she gave birth to Bobby, her fourth and only surviving child whom she raised single-handedly to become a successful lawyer, an executive and a businessman rolled into one.
She picks up the unfinished rosary that she had earlier put on the table beside her. She separates the "Our Father" bead by a length of chain and adds a decade consisting of 10 "Hail Mary" beads.
Lola Doni has her share of sorrows.
Her first three children died during their infancy and she herself became a widow when Bobby was only 6 years old. But her greatest agony was when Tommy and Maan, her only two grandchildren from Bobby and Emelyn, met their death aboard an ill-fated flight of Air Philippines seven Aprils ago. He was 25; she was 22.
Of this tragedy, Lola Doni felt sad but not resentful. She didn't ask God why this happened to her when she had been a good and faithful servant all her life.
She has served and extended material and financial support to the Church, championing the cause of the poor, and living a Spartan life despite her social status, becoming a catechist and active leader of organizations, like the Hijas de Maria, Apostolada, and Legion of Mary, and taking care of the Sto. Niño chapel in Lapaz among other works of mercy.
But such was not Lola Doni's ways. Instead, she asked God for more strength to continue her life's mission of serving Him through His church and His flock.
She completes four more sets of decades, each separated by an "Our Father" bead, except the last one, which she attaches directly to the other side of the center.
Exemplary service
On July 21, Lola Doni received from Pope Benedict XVI the papal award "Pro Ecclesia Et Pontifice," a prestigious distinction and honor given to a devout Catholic for exemplary service to the Church and fellowmen.
Lola Doni accepted the award from the bishop of Tandag, Msgr. Nerio Odchimar, at the San Nicolas de Tolentino Cathedral in Tandag in an elaborate ceremony attended by relatives, friends, and church and government officials.
Four months later, on Nov. 30, three days after her birthday, the family of Lola Doni threw a grand fete worthy of a centenarian at the gym of the Polytechnic State College in Tago town.
Relatives from all over the country and abroad came and paid tribute to this woman of substance who continues to walk her talk even if she's now wheelchair-bound due to a bad fall that surgery wasn't able to correct.
Every time someone asks what her secret to a longer life is, Lola Doni always says: inner peace. But then she would blink her eyes that still have no use for glasses and smile, as if teasing that it couldn't get simpler and harder than that.
Just as she has perfected the craft of rosary making, Lola Doni has indeed perfected her life as a living offering to God. That's for 100 years and counting!
I stand and watch in awe as she makes the final assembly of the long string of beads and the centerpiece. She holds the string up by one end and lets it dangle freely.
After seeing no "twist" in the string, she attaches the free end of the centerpiece. And the rosary becomes whole.
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