Grandmother wants joy for twins

Globe Santa's helpers Hank Morse (between the snowman and Globe Santa), from radio station WROR, and David Wade, from WBZ-TV, helped out yesterday outside South Station. (Trista Allman for The Boston Globe)

Not unlike many of today's retirees, a grandmother from Boston lives month to month on a fixed income. But this 70-year-old woman's daughter passed away more than a decade ago, and today the grandmother is still raising two grandchildren.

"My daughter died of cancer," the grandmother wrote in a letter to Globe Santa. "She passed away when her twin boys were about a year old."

She goes on to say that her social security and retirement benefits have provided for the family's most basic needs, enough to eat and a small two-bedroom apartment, but the boys often go without much in terms of extras.

She said she teaches her grandsons that material things are not "as important as what they're built up to be." As one can imagine, that lesson only holds so much weight in the mind of a 10-year-old.

"They see other kids with fancy things that cost a lot of money," she wrote. "And they want those things, too."

Both boys have excelled in sports, which their grandmother said seems to be the most positive outlet they have found for dealing with their loss. They especially like football and basketball, she wrote, and have not decided yet whether they would rather play for the Celtics or the Patriots.

Though they never knew their mother, they often ask about her and struggle to understand why she is not here with them.

"Just now I think they're getting old enough to know that sometimes we lose people, but it has been a hard road," she wrote.