A hard-working, lonely widow survived the deadly Lahaina wildfires last year – only to die in a bizarre accident while trying to get her life back on track.

The death of Edralina Diezon on April 3 marked the end of several difficult and turbulent years in which she worked tirelessly to provide for her family in the Philippines.

She toiled 80 hours a week as a janitor and struggled to get to work for months after being transferred to a beach resort that had been converted into a shelter for homeless Maui residents, The New York Times reported.

Still, Diezon, 69, went to her job every day, which paid her just $15 an hour, and had to deal with bureaucratic hurdles as she tried to get disaster relief.

Diezon’s distress began when her husband – the family’s long-time breadwinner – died of colon cancer in 2014.

She obtained her green card and moved from Manila to Maui to live with her brother, who drove a taxi and owned a now-demolished seven-bedroom house where he rented rooms to tenants, including his sister.

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

Eventually, she had enough money to send $500 to $1,000 every two weeks to her four children and six grandchildren in the Philippines – the money was spent on renovating their family home and sending her grandchildren to school.

She also sent care packages every three months with clothes, cologne, handbags and food.

But their lives were turned upside down when deadly wildfires ravaged Lahaina.

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

Diezon spent two days and two nights in the storage room, and when she finally emerged – starving and disorientated – the area where she had lived had disappeared.

She wandered through the charred streets for hours until she finally met a policeman who took her to a hotel that had been converted into emergency accommodation.

Eventually, Diezon – along with over 1,000 other homeless residents – moved into the beachfront Royal Lahaina Resort and Bungalow.

However, the resort was about four miles from her workplace, and to get there, Diezon had to walk along the fast-moving and dangerous Honoapiilani Highway.

After a while, Diezon started hitchhiking.

Eventually, she had 43-year-old Portia Marcelo spend a few days chauffeured her to appointments to have her glasses replaced, to the vehicle registration office to get an official ID card, and to a supermarket so she could send money to her family.

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

The volunteers then asked her further questions about reconstruction, accommodation and her mental health and then waved her on to the next station.

Diezon subsequently gave out her identification and bank routing number to receive money from the People’s Fund of Maui – which was bolstered by donations from Oprah Winfrey and actor Dwayne Johnson.

Eventually, she went to another hotel to inquire about disaster relief efforts from the Maui United Way, which distributed direct cash payments of $1,000 to nearly 8,000 people.

However, when she arrived, Diezon was sent to another location where she could not go because she had to go to work.

Since she didn’t have a Venmo account, she couldn’t receive money through Venmo donations, so she had to keep slaving away to earn money.

It took months for the buses to return, and 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 have to search for a ride in the dark again.

In the spring, according to her family and friends, Diezon began to despair when she and the other evacuees were told they would have to leave the Royal Lahaina by summer.

Some decided to leave the island, but that meant Diezon had to find a new job – after seven months of doing everything she could to keep her job.

Diezon made a final electronic transfer to her daughter, Eden Diezon Balobo, on April 1, just two days before she died in a horrific car accident.

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

Instead, Diezon decided to wear black that evening.

She had to cross the busy Honoapiilani Highway in the dark.

She also avoided using a crosswalk on Keawe Street because it would have passed the bus stop. Instead, she crossed the street through the parking lot of the Lahaina Cannery Mall, where the bus driver was picking up passengers.

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

Diezon’s family then fought in the Philippines to bring her remains home.

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

“Edralina moved to Maui nine years ago, driven by a dream to provide a better life for her family back home,” it said.

“She worked tirelessly and sacrificed her own comfort to support her children and give them opportunities she never had.”

But the fundraiser only raised $475 and the family had to figure out how to bring the matriarch home.

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

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

At her funeral on June 17, Diezon’s casket was covered with white daisies and a framed photograph of Diezon stood next to her body and a statue of Jesus.