Zoraida Martínez is a caregiver, in every sense of the word. She raised her younger siblings as a child, cared for her son through illness, brought up her niece and looks after her father in his old age. Her work resembles the chinchorros she weaves—those wide hammocks of interlaced threads that embrace and provide rest. She makes them on enormous looms propped against the walls of her living room, with the same love and dedication she has poured into caring for her family, through good times and bad. And she goes a little further still, crocheting butterflies, capybaras, horses, blue jays, and doves to decorate their edges.

She learned to weave chinchorros thanks to her younger brother, William Martínez, whom she raised like a son after their parents separated and she was left practically in charge of her siblings, unable even to attend school. Zoraida was the eldest, but only eight years old. They moved from house to house, endured much abuse, were eventually separated, and later reunited. By then, William had learned to weave chinchorros in a police workshop, and though he lacked patience, he taught his older sister the craft. Still, it wasn’t until Zoraida separated from the father of her three children that she realized weaving could become her livelihood.

In fact, it was when her youngest son, Salomón, turned seven that Zoraida faced one of the hardest trials a mother can endure: caring for him, entirely on her own, through the three years of leukemia treatment he received in Bogotá. At this point in her story, tears are inevitable, because recalling how close he came to death is not easy. Caring for him alone meant finding ways to cover transportation, rent for their small room, selling catalog products, and crying without a familiar shoulder to stand by. That’s when she began weaving hats, scarves, bags, and doilies in the hospital waiting room, selling them to doctors and nurses. And, as she so often wins hearts, they even wrote about her in El Tiempo Newspaper, with support from the Colombian Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation, and offered her a leadership role for the catalog brands she sold. Fortunately, Salomón recovered, and when they returned to Casanare, Zoraida chose not to go back to construction work but to devote herself to what she loves most: weaving chinchorros.

“Life is hard,” she tells us, “but oh, how beautiful it becomes” in her hands, with the weaving she now shares with her husband, Edilberto Laverde—the man who once knocked on her door to buy a chinchorro and never left her side. He came into her life as a partner, helper, and companion. Zoraida is glad to say that he understands her, admires her courage and grit, because he knows her story and sees how she rises stronger after every blow. He reminds her she is not alone, and laughs and cries with her. With that same deep love between them, they work together—Zoraida has taught him to weave, and to this day he remains her best student.

After revisiting her hardest memories, Zoraida shares a dream, because she is also joyful and full of hope. She dreams of making a chinchorro for her idols of popular music, Yeison Jiménez or Jhonny Rivera. She imagines one of her hammocks hanging in their homes. She also dreams that her work will stop being invisible—though she certainly is not, for she captivates us with the same sweetness with which she once charmed the hospital staff while caring for her son. This artisan with a heart of gold continues to dream while never neglecting her craft: tightly woven, beautifully made chinchorros, infused with the spirit of her caregiving soul.