For my mother-in-law, Veronica Ibera, there was never a wrong time to sing.

She had a piano in her living room that she taught herself to play and a lovely voice, with which she’d break into song in the car, at the market, while keeping a careful eye on her grandchildren in the park.

When she was visiting, my bedroom light flashed on at 3 a.m. and I awakened to see her standing at the door wanting to know where we kept our electronic organ; she had a show tune she’d been trying to learn and couldn’t sleep.

She once stood up in the waiting room of a hospital intensive care unit and belted out "Dahil Sa Iyo."

I expected looks of horror from folks nervously awaiting news about their loved ones, but instead I saw appreciative smiles.

The smiles she caused were the first things I remembered when we received the phone call Monday that Veronica Ibera had died at 82 in the Hilo Life Care Center.

She was the second youngest of six children born to Filipino immigrants in a sugar plantation camp in Olaa (now Keaau) on the Big Island.

She loved the movie musicals of the time and grew up with dreams of Hollywood, but never lived more than a mile from the house where she was born, devoting her life to raising her three kids and later caring for her grandkids.

She and her late husband, Gorgonio, lived on his modest salary from the sugar mill, but saved enough to help put my wife, Maggie, through college and help both Maggie and younger daughter Carolyn buy their first houses.

She was heartsore — but not broken — by the tragic death of her son Francisco and her loss of function from surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Sunday dinner at her place was a feast she served up pupu-style while we sat around the black-and-white TV watching "Bonanza."

One at a time, she’d bring out vegetable dinengdeng, miki noodles, pork adobo, a braised beef dish she simply called "meat," fried shrimp, roast chicken and a fish my father-in-law had caught at King’s Landing — or if we were lucky, a lobster.

She was known in Keaau town for giving handmade crafts to friends and strangers alike — coin purses she sewed and stuffed with change or plastic film canisters she decorated and filled with goodies.

When she could no longer craft, she handed out colorful plastic clothespins to all she met.

We must have a hundred around the house that she sent; you’d be surprised how handy they can be.

Veronica Ibera’s life wasn’t newsworthy, but it was noteworthy for the way she boldly sang to the beat of her own drummer.

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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.