Hardworking, lonely widow survived Lahaina wildfires... only to die in freak accident as she tried to piece her life back together

A hardworking, lonely widow survived the deadly Lahaina wildfires last year - only to die in a freak accident as she tried to piece her life back together.

Edralina Diezon's death on April 3 marked the end of a difficult and tumultuous few years while she worked tirelessly to provide for her family back in the Philippines.

She toiled 80 hours a week as a janitor, and struggled for months to get to work after she was relocated to a beachfront resort that was turned into a shelter for displaced Maui residents, the New York Times reports. 

Still Diezon, 69, showed up every day to the job that paid just $15 an hour, and had to face red tape as she tried to get disaster relief.

Diezon's hardships began when her husband - who had long been the family breadwinner - died of colon cancer in 2014.

She received her green card and moved from Manila to Maui to join her brother, who drove a taxi and owned a now-destroyed seven-bed house where he rented out rooms to tenants, including his sister.

Diezon soon got a job at a cleaning service and recycled aluminum cans on the side.

Eventually, she raised enough money to send $500 to $1,000 every two weeks to her four children and six grandchildren in the Philippines - which went to upgrades to her family home and her grandchildren's schooling.

She would also send care packages every three months filled with clothes, cologne, handbags and food.

But her life turned upside down when the deadly wildfires ripped through Lahaina.

She spent August 8, 2023 hiding in a storage room, surrounded by mops, buckets and brooms as the fire continued to spread.

Diezon would go on to spend two days and two nights in the storage room, and when she finally emerged - starving and disoriented - the neighborhood where she lived was gone.

She wandered the charred streets for hours before she finally encountered a police officer who brought her to a hotel that had been converted into a shelter.

Eventually, Diezon would move into the beachfront Royal Lahaina Resort and Bungalow - along with more than 1,000 other displaced residents.

But the resort was a good four miles away from her job, and to get there, Diezon would have to walk along the fast-moving and dangerous Honoapiilani Highway.

After a while, Diezon resorted to hitchhiking.

She ultimately had Portia Marcelo, 43, spend a few days shuttling her to appointments to have her glasses replaced, to the motor vehicle division to get an official state identification card and to a supermarket so she could wire money to her family. 

Diezon also told volunteers helping to rebuild Maui that she needed transportation.

The volunteers then asked her more questions about rebuilding, housing and her mental health, then waved her to the next station.

Diezon would go on to hand over her ID and bank routing number to get money from the People's Fund of Maui - which was bolstered by donations from Oprah Winfrey and actor Dwayne Johnson. 

Finally, she went to another hotel to inquire about disaster relief from Maui United Way -  which was distributing direct cash payments of $1,000 to nearly 8,000 individuals.

But when she arrived, Diezon was directed to another location that she couldn't go to because she had to get to her job.

She also could not get money from Venmo donations, as she did not have an account - forcing her to continue to toil for money. 

It took months for the buses to return, but when they finally did, the last one back to her hotel stopped running at the same time Diezon's shift ended.

If she missed it, Diezon would again be left scrambling to find a ride in the dark.

By the spring, Diezon's family and friends said she started to become despondent as she and other evacuees were told they would have to move out of the Royal Lahaina by the summer.

Some decided to move off of the island, but doing so would mean Diezon would have to find a new job - after spending seven month doing everything she could to keep her job. 

Diezon would make a final wire transfer to her daughter, Eden Diezon Balobo, on April 1 - just two days before she died in a horrific crash.

She left work on April 3 after dark, and was not wearing the white-flower printed Hawaiian shirt uniform that the other cleaners wore.

Instead, Diezon decided to wear black that night.

 In the dark, she had to cross the busy Honoapiilani Highway.

She also decided not to use a crosswalk at Keawe Street - which would overshoot the bus stop - and opted instead to cross through the parking lot of the Lahaina Cannery Mall, where the bus driver picked up passengers. 

But as Diezon tried to catch the bus back to the hotel, she was struck by a 2017 Nissan Rogue, and she died - just three days before her 70th birthday.

In the aftermath, Diezon's family back in the Philippines fought to bring her remains back home.

They set up an online fundraiser to raise enough money to transport her remains from the United States.

'Edralina moved to Maui nine years ago, driven by the dream of providing a better life for her family back home,' it said.

'She worked tirelessly, sacrificing her own comfort to support her children and give them opportunities she never had.'

But the fundraiser only earned $475, and the family was left struggling to figure out how they could bring the matriarch home.

Fortunately, Diezon's brother learned in May that his sister had a savings account.

It contained $19,000 - enough to ship her remains to Manila and pay for her funeral.

At her funeral on June 17, Diezon's coffin was shrouded in white daisies, and a framed photo of Diezon sat alongside her body and a statue of Jesus.