MARIA ISABEL GONZALEZ
Belle Glade

Overcoming cancer, mom stays ’strong’ for kids lacking clothes

For Maria Isabel Gonzalez, the painful surgery and daylong chemotherapy sessions to battle ovarian cancer were difficult.
But feeling like she could not be a good mother was harder still.
Derailed by her illness, Maria couldn’t buy clothes for her daughters, Guadalupe and Jessica, or help 7-year-old Gabriel with his spelling words.
Maria, a Mexican immigrant who lives in Belle Glade with her children and her husband, Gabriel, was diagnosed last year. She worked at McDonald’s until two days before her surgery, but since then, directed by insurance and referrals, she has jumped from one doctor’s office to another to battle the disease.
“I put myself in God’s hands,” she said. “I had to be strong. I have three children. I have to be strong for what can come my way.”
Her path to recovery has been full of struggle. The worst, Maria said, was when her son asked why she had no hair, or why she couldn’t walk with him to the mall.
Maria’s treatment kept her away from the work force and away from her kids. She remembers always being tired after chemotherapy, without any strength to help her children with homework or cook a warm meal.
“I would get a fever, and I couldn’t even stand up,” she recalled.
Financial struggles also followed. Gabriel had to quit his job in the fields to take Maria from their Belle Glade home to the doctor’s office in Boca Raton.
Maria’s cancer has been in remission for six months, although the chemotherapy left a trace. She has high blood pressure and stomach pains, and must take medication to lessen the pain in her bones.
She is now trying to get back on her feet. She drives to ESOL classes every week, and takes her kids to the mall on weekends.
Gabriel has returned to work, but the family’s finances have been devastated. They cannot afford clothes and shoes for the children, or that bedroom set 15-year-old Guadalupe needs to make her tiny bedroom more comfortable.
Maria’s wish is that her children have something new to wear to begin the new year.

Maria Isabel Gonzalez’s Wish
The family’s most pressing need is for clothes and shoes for the children, and bedroom furniture for their 15-year-old daughter. The kids would also love a small television, a computer, a PlayStation with games, an iPod and a children’s bicycle.

Nominated by: Palm Beach County Farmworker Jobs & Education Program
Address: 810 Datura St., West Palm Beach, FL 33401
Phone: (561) 355-4793
Its mission: To provide education and training to farmworkers and their dependents to help them obtain year-round, permanent employment.