Retirement
1: 21.05.24
It seemed a cruel fate that her husband had been taken the very first day he had finally retired. They said it was as if his heart had just given up with the relief of finally having managed to finish working full-time. All those years of scrimping and saving to reach this day, this part of their lives where they could finally do the things they loved, without the pressures or anxieties of work or other people on their minds. She resented him. She loved him. She missed him, even though most of the time they were together, she had wished they weren’t. Somehow, with him unable to talk to her, she started to like him more and get on much better. But he left her with nothing. The will had given it all away. It seemed so cruel of him at first, until the reality had sunk in, that it was genuinely a silly mistake he had made. Silly, not small. Stupid was more like it. She had always imagined that she would be the first to go - worried how he’d manage not even being able to boil an egg, let alone look after the house or himself. But here she was, ten years on, having to get the tram into town just to get the things he’d always pick up for her after work. And her eyes filled again with tears at the thought of the only thing left to come for her. Her true retirement.