Be Careful What You Wish For, It Might Come True
What Mrs Ada wanted most of all was to retire. She had a rather heavy job that took her away from the house from morning to night. And every morning as she left the house, she would look at her little garden and think: ‘how nice it would be to be able to stay there and pull weeds, plant flowers and sometimes sit and look at the sky’.
He also had many little wishes that were waiting for retirement to come true, like embroidering, painting, doing a jigsaw puzzle of at least 1,000 pieces, things like that.
But the longed-for retirement always seemed to recede like a mirage.
At 60 she looked forward to 62 so that she could finally retire, but one bad morning came news that shocked her, it would take at least another five years before she could retire. In the years to come this stretched on by 3 months and now at the threshold of 65, she discovered that it still took 2 years.
She was a little discouraged, but she had always been a strong woman, so she looked forward hoping that those blessed two years would pass quickly.
One morning, however, everything suddenly changed. She woke up very early, two hours before the alarm clock rang, which was a working day even though it was Saturday. A stabbing pain in her stomach woke her up.
She had her partner bring her a painkiller because she could not even get up. It had some effect and she tried to get into bed, but after a short time it returned stronger than before.
At this point the only option was to rush to the hospital, then call an ambulance and be taken there. The usual long wait, with almost unbearable pain, even though a nurse had put her on a painkiller drip. In the meantime, our lady Ada thought, the pain was quite severe and she didn't even quite understand where it originated, but it radiated all over her torso.
Surely it must be calculus, the pain is said to be the worst ever. But when finally, after several hours, they decided to do some tests, they soon realised that this was not something to be taken lightly. So examination after examination, X-rays, CT scans, etc. etc.
After a couple of hours they admitted her to the ward and told her that they had to operate urgently. Let's leave aside at this point all the ordeals that poor Mrs Ada had to go through, the operation that turned out to be bigger than expected, the stay of so many days, the convalescence.
And the final verdict, unfortunately a malignant tumour, fortunately curable. Well, after all this and a month and a half after these events, Mrs Ada was finally retired. Disability pension, to start with, but then, since the operation left her 100% disabled, another pension was added, which allowed her to receive monthly almost what she earned while working.
And now? Almost two years have passed since that tragic morning. Now you can find Mrs Ada in her small garden where everything is well cared for and beautiful, painting a still life, or knitting a jumper for her grandson, and every now and then she puts down her knitting or her paintbrush and looks at the sky.
