Benito’s example – The Day

Benito Hernández Cruz is 89 years old, he is a widower and he cannot hear very well, but he has perseverance, hands and privileged eyesight. Five years ago, her granddaughter Leila taught her how to weave wool hats on a small circular loom. And since then, making garments to protect heads from the cold has become her main hobby. “It’s almost an obsession,” describes her daughter Ana Elia, who adds that it also serves as the best way to thank doctors, nurses, journalists, photographers, friends, neighbors, visitors … She doesn’t stop weaving; From the time he gets up to the time he goes to bed, and with the support of his family, he has now set himself the goal of covering the heads of many cancer patients. An example for young and old.

To Benito they already know him as “the one with the hats”, an appellation that has been earned hard, based on effort and dedication. Despite her age, she is capable of knitting up to three hats in a day and that means spending a lot of yarn. His family bought him the necessary material, but there came a time when the thread became a very important expense for this neighbor of La Guancha. “It was a total ruin,” his daughter confesses. Since the media have noticed his work, Benito receives some donations of threads, although he has his preferences and, sometimes, he gets angry with the balls that are not to his liking. “I would have already finished three hats with another thread,” he commented during his interview with THE DAY, while struggling with a material that was too silky and thicker than usual. His favorite is an acrylic yarn, the thick melissa type, that his family buys “at the El Trompo shopping center’s Chinese.”

Donations help you stay on track without ruining the family. Ana Elia recalls that last year, when she had to spend several months in the hospital, at different times, “she also didn’t stop knitting caps to give them to doctors and nurses. It is his way of saying thanks. Currently, he is focused on creating smaller caps for children with cancer from the oncology floors of the island’s hospitals.

To spread this altruistic work, his granddaughter Leila Hernández has created a profile for him on Instagram (benitocruz2021) and another on Facebook (@Benitoeldelosgorros). Social networks have allowed other supportive people to learn about Benito’s story and help him buy more thread so as not to stop until all cancer patients who need it have a hat to keep them cold.

Benito gets up every day at six thirty in the morning and making hats is his main activity. She weaves in the morning, has lunch, goes to bed for a while and in the afternoon she weaves a few more hours. “At six o’clock in the afternoon it says that it closes”, details his daughter. The most curious thing is that Benito had not picked up a thread or a needle until he was 84 years old. All his life he worked with heavy machinery, such as shovels and tractors, and ended his professional life at the Bonanza hotel, in Puerto de la Cruz, where he retired.

“It hit the hardest when my mother died,” recalls Ana Elia. Since he became a widower of María del Carmen, Benito has not stopped knitting hundreds of hats and a scarf“Although he likes that less because it takes longer to finish them”, recalls Ana Elia.

It is difficult for Benito to hear, but he does not lose his smile: «I’ve been with this for more than five years. When I was in the hospital, tired of being there, the little girl told me that she was going to bring me one of those rings. and I made caps for all of them: the nurses, the nurses, the doctors … Now I am doing a campaign for the children, as I am here doing nothing, well I started with that. I love it, if I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t do it ».

“I can do three or four in one day. I get up before seven and I get on. I have made thousands of hats already. I don’t even know how many. I haven’t even counted them. If I count them, I’ll die, ”he says between laughter. Nor lose neither the skill nor the vitality nor the good humor, although he admits that sometimes he gets tired. When there is not so much energy, it is time to make the hats “from time to time.” Last weekend was productive: “They put me five rolls of yarn for Saturday and Sunday, and when they came on Monday there were none,” he says, still laughing.

He is a man of character and, without losing his cheerful countenance, he has time to complain about the threads that are “worse to work with,” or to remember the culprits for having taught him. He loves to show how he works and confesses that the most difficult thing is to “finish off” each hat. Encourage other people to learn to knit and challenge those who say “I do that, to start doing it, to see what they do … with time they may as well do it.” This is good for the old and the young.

His family appreciates the support they have received from many places in Canary Islands, although they miss “a little more affection” from their town and from the La Guancha City Council. Ana Elia says that «they have come from afar to bring her threads, even from the South and from Santa Cruz; they have collected donations at a haberdashery in Los Realejos, and we have been able to continue that way, because each ball costs about two euros ». Whoever wants to collaborate with Benito, can contact his family through social networks and by calling 626 343 214.

He does not wear glasses and works with great precision. He makes little mistakes and designs the color combinations himself. He likes happy mixes “for boys, who fall in love with colors,” and he says it with a big smile. The smile of an 89-year-old man who learned to knit at 84 and who gets up every day to work altruistically to make the lives of others more pleasant.