She's learning to do a lot of things since her husband, Hilton Joseph Dias, was murdered while visiting their hometown in Sri Lanka on April 11, 2016. She's cooking hamburgers at McDonald's, fixing things around her Mariners Harbor house, raising her six children alone.

"It's too hard," Ruwini says quietly through a translator, her friend Sherine Desilva.

The heartache of losing the love of her life is a challenge enough. Holding her children, ages 8 to 19, close as they grieve their father is another seemingly insurmountable hurdle. But learning to make it alone in a country that has, for so long, welcomed her, is proving to be too much.

There is no silver-lining to this story, at least not yet: While family and friends have helped the Dias family in the ways they can, the family will soon lose their house. They were planning on buying it before Hilton died, but now they can no longer afford it. The landlord is planning on selling it, Ruwini said.

THE DAY EVERYTHING CHANGED

Ruwini's daily life before her husband died was a good one: She could stay home while her husband worked at a senior care facility. She made dinner for her family every night — always something with rice, maybe some kind of curry, she said.

Then, on a visit to Sri Lanka to see his mother, Hilton confronted trespassers on the family's property. He told them to leave. They stabbed him five times. He died in the hospital two days later.

Friends pulled money together for her to fly to Sri Lanka for the funeral. Her 17-year-old son used his savings to join her. The rest of the family never got to say goodbye.

Ruwini now works full time at McDonald's, where her two eldest sons also work part time to help support the family. She doesn't know how to drive, but the fast food restaurant is just a few blocks away, so, at 8 a.m. every morning, she walks to work. When she gets home, she helps the kids with their homework, cooks dinner, goes to bed.

A COMFORTABLE LIFE

The Dias family is among the 5,000 Sri Lankans living in Staten Island. Many of the families moved to the borough during a civil war in the country in the late 1980s.

Around that time, Hilton, who worked with a shipping company around that time, moved to the United States to work as a cab driver and support his mother after his father passed away.

On a trip back to to Sri Lanka he met Ruwini in his hometown and they got married in a church. Ruwini pulls out their wedding pictures, one with her in a white wedding gown, one in a traditional Sari.
"If I had free time, I would sleep," she said. Her eyes, big and round like her six children's, well up. But she doesn't cry.

After five years of visiting back and forth — and giving birth to three of their children — Ruwini finally got sponsored to reunite their family in America.

The family grew to eight. Ruwini finally had a daughter, who her sons say was their father's favorite. Hilton worked while Ruwini stayed home to raise their family.

"We had a comfortable life," Ruwini said.

Hilton and his sons would play basketball with his sons in their backyard, they'd go fishing in Great Kills. They had two dogs, which he loved, his 17-year-old son Kevin Dias said. Hilton was a lectern at St. Roch Church, which the family attends every Sunday.

"He was a funny guy," Kevin said of his father. "He could make friends with anyone."

When Kevin talks about his father he smiles, until he realizes again that he's gone.

"I don't think about it too much," he said.

"He loved his kids, and he loved me," Ruwini said.

HOME IS HOME

Until the funeral in Sri Lanka, Ruwini hadn't seen her own parents since she immigrated here in 2002. They still haven't met her three youngest children. Amid the heartbreak, on top of learning to drive, caring for her family and working harder than she's ever worked in her life, Ruwini said she would never leave the country she calls home.

"I like this country. I feel secure here, more than in Sri Lanka, especially because of what happened," she said.

Throughout the tragedy, the family's presence has been a constant at St. Roch Church, which has pooled some money together to help the family. A memorial mass will be held at St. Roch Church on 602 Port Richmond Ave. on July 11 at 10 a.m.

"They're always together — it's not something you usually see in families," said Sirena Toledo, a secretary at the church who also taught catechism to the two eldest sons. "I think it's their faith that's pulling them through this."

Ruwini is happiest when she thinks about her kids, and how they thrive in school. She wants them all to go to college. Kevin, who will enter his senior year at McKee in the fall, is studying hard. When he graduates, he wants to join the carpentry union, work for a couple years to help his family, then go to college for engineering. His older brother, who also works at McDonald's, is studying at CSI.

"They're good kids," Ruwini said. "But they miss their dad."

There's an online fundraising campaign for the family. Funds will help them keep their home.

(by By Lauren Steussy - silive.com)