After I retired, I had nothing to do. I was perfectly capable of sitting at home doing nothing, but my grandchild was just born, and my daughter was in a hurry to go into the office and offered me a part-time job – I would sit with my grandchild and the kids would pay me for it. They could have helped anyway, but I decided to support their game of “profession” and became a babysitter for my grandson. I raised two sons and a daughter myself, and I handled my grandson just fine. I could also hold him in my house and back up the kids during work or their visits, but Frank grew up fast and soon went to kindergarten, and the need for me was gone. I was hoping for a quick vacation, but this time my son-in-law offered me a job.
Last year they had bought a house in the village, but they did not go there themselves. They hoped that my son would look after the garden and my daughter would take care of the garden. I willingly took up the lawnmower and secateurs, trimming the trees and planting flowers outside the house in early summer. I liked staying overnight there as well, and I was really looking forward to the kids coming over to appreciate my work. I literally had to beg my son-in-law to stop by with the car. He arrived closer to July, looked at the house and the garden, nodded at everything, and “fired” me. He said I had done a great job, but they would not make it to the summer house this summer anyway – they were going to the sea, and it had become difficult to pay me.
I had never been so offended. I had never asked them to pay me, I had never turned down money just because my daughter insisted and because I perceived it as help. It turned out that it wasn’t hard for them to go to the sea, but it was hard for them to give me money for my pension. I told my son-in-law that there was no need to pay me, but let him not take away the keys to the house, I myself would come to keep the plot in more or less normal condition, otherwise by next year everything will grow overgrown again.
I wonder if my children will help in the future, or by winter they will find work again, so as not to give me money for nothing. Or maybe they will decide that my pension will be enough, and I will somehow survive on my own.
