My mother lived as a recluse in a distant village, not wanting to see me or my wife. My mother and I did not get on well, she resented that I preferred the big city to the countryside, so all my attempts to help her and keep in touch were fruitless. I didn’t even make it to her funeral, but the little house she lived in was registered in my name, since I was her only living relative, and I suspect she had made a will a long time ago.
It took me and my wife a long time to get out and drive more than three hundred miles to see what it was like. If it were not for the desire to see the grave of his mother and to bring her flowers, I can, maybe, and even threw the idea in a long drawer.
The plan was to go exactly to the cemetery, and then swing by my mother’s house to see what’s left of her things – what to give away to neighbors, what to take away, what to just burn so it doesn’t get dusty. Counting on being alone in the house, we were surprised to see men’s things in all the rooms and the guy who was at the stove himself.
He had been working for my mother for over five years. He helped with the vegetable gardens, dug the cellar for her, and lived in the guest room, since he was in trouble with his parents, like me. His mother thought he was almost her second son, as I understood it. The guy had nowhere to go, so he tidied up his mother’s house on his own, but didn’t touch any of his belongings and gave my wife all of his mother’s jewelry and even his money savings. He asked to stay in the house until we sold it.
Initially, we really wanted to get rid of the house, because we have a summer house, and much better than this house in the village, and go here far away. But we weighed with my wife, the approximate profits and the fact that the guy who took care of my mother instead of me for free, will remain without anything and without a roof over his head, we decided not to sell at all. After discussing everything with my unspoken brother, we decided to sign the cabin over to him. I think my mother wanted to do it, but either she didn’t have time or she was afraid I would be greedy and pester a stranger.
That was the end of it. It’s been four years now. We have never once regretted that we did not sell the house for a penny or that we did not keep it for ourselves. Frankly speaking, I wouldn’t even remember it if I hadn’t seen a story about the village on TV. So I remembered the house and my mother’s grave. Maybe it was a sign that it was time to go and visit her, or maybe even a boyfriend.
