They say we are responsible for everything that happens in our lives, that we are to blame for our choices. However we decide to spend one day, that’s how our lives will turn out.
Looking back, I made a poor choice when I decided to tie my future to a man who never took anything seriously. In my youth, I was completely smitten with Frank, and even though I knew he was a bit of a rogue, I was convinced hed change for my sake. So I wanted to believe and hope. But the truth is, people are who they are. And so, even after my son, Francis, was born, Frank didn’t change in the slightest.
Month after month, I kept hearing more about Franks escapades. Neighbours, friendseven my own family would tell me stories. I felt ashamed and deeply hurt, all at once. I put up with it for five years before I couldn’t bear it anymore. I divorced him in the end. The one fortunate thing was that Frank wasnt greedy. He left me his flat in exchange for not asking for child support. My son and I didnt want to live there, so we rented it out and moved in with my mother, who needed someone to care for her. Thats how we got by.
The rent money I spent on my sonon clothes, school fees, day trips, and games. I tried to give him as normal a childhood as possible. Any money I earned otherwise went towards the household bills, food, and my mothers medicine, as shed been bedridden for years. I thought my son understood and appreciated how much I did for him. Now, I am fifty-seven, diabetic, giving myself daily insulin injections, struggling to keep going as long as I can.
Because of my health, Im not able to work, and who would take me on now anyway? I havent got a pension either, after bouncing from job to job without ever staying anywhere long enough. Most jobs I took were off the books, just trying to make ends meet. All in all, I survive off the money I get from renting out that flat. My son Francis, who is thirty-one now, recently decided to get married, and announced that he and his wife will be moving into the flat.
When I explained that I will have no money left to live on, my son simply said that its my problem to deal with. Now, I genuinely dont know what to do. I havent a penny in savings, I need medicine all the time, there are utility bills to pay, and I must eat something. What am I supposed to do? How can my own son do this to me? And why would he?
