Her Relatives Expected Her to Go to a Nursing Home — But She Bought an Apartment by the Sea
Anna looked out the window. A light drizzle was falling beyond the glass. She pulled a blanket over her shoulders and winced from the pain. Her recent wrist fracture still reminded her of itself. Sixty-eight was not twenty-eight.
The doorbell rang. Anna slowly walked over and opened the door.
“Mom, are you walking around without a scarf again?” Igor, her son, stood there with shopping bags. “Why weren’t you answering your phone?”
“I didn’t hear it. I left the phone in the room.”
Igor placed the bags on the kitchen table.
“Larisa sent this. Soup and cutlets. Heat them up.”
“Thank you. How are the grandchildren?”
“Fine. Kolya got accepted, Mashka is sick. Listen, Mom…” Igor sat down on a chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Larisa and I have been thinking. Maybe you should consider a care home?”
Anna froze.
“A what?”
“Well, you know, good care, nurses around the clock. After your fall, we’re worried.”
“A nursing home, you mean?” Anna felt her heart tighten.
“Don’t call it that! It’s a modern boarding house for elderly people. Comfortable, cozy…”
“Igor, I manage perfectly well on my own.”
“Mom, you’re getting older. Larisa and I work, we can’t constantly look after you…”
“No one needs to look after me.”
Anna turned away toward the window. Inside, everything trembled with hurt.
“At least look at the brochures,” Igor said, taking out glossy leaflets. “Larka found three options.”
“All right, I’ll look,” Anna lied.
When her son left, she threw the brochures into the trash bin.
That evening, her daughter Katya called.
“Mom, Igor said he stopped by. How are you?”
“I’m fine,” Anna replied sharply.
“He told you about the care home?”
“Yes.”
“And what do you think?”
“Katya, do you all want to get rid of me so you can divide the apartment?”
“Mom! How can you say that?” Katya cried indignantly. “We’re worried about you.”
“Worried…” Anna smiled bitterly. “I spent thirty years babysitting your children, helping you, and now I’m in the way?”
“No one is saying that. It’s just that you’re alone, you don’t move around much…”
“You know what, I’ll think about it. That’s all. Bye.”
Anna hung up. Her heart was pounding. She turned on the kettle and began looking through old photographs. There she was, young, with her husband Misha at the seaside. How she had dreamed of returning there in old age! Misha had died five years earlier. And she had still never made it back to the sea.
The next day, Anna called her friend Galina, who had moved to Anapa after retirement.
“Galya, hello. How are you doing there?”
“Anyut! Wonderful! I swim, sunbathe, go to a painting club.”
“Wow! I didn’t even know you painted.”
“I wanted to when I was young, but there was work, children… And now I decided — it’s time!”
Anna sighed.
“And what about your children? Don’t you miss them?”
“They come during holidays with the grandchildren. But the main thing is, I’m finally my own person. Anya, it’s such happiness!”
After the conversation, Anna stared out the window for a long time. That evening, she took out an album she had hidden away for many years. Inside were the drawings from her youth. Clumsy, but sincere. Her dream of becoming an artist had been crushed by everyday life, children, and work.
A week later, her children gathered in her kitchen.
“Mom, Larisa and I looked at a care home. The conditions are wonderful,” Igor began.
“A private room, three meals a day,” Larisa added. “And most importantly, medical staff nearby.”
“How much does it cost?” Anna asked.
“Well… it isn’t cheap. But your pension will be enough if the apartment is rented out.”
“Yes, Mom,” Katya nodded. “And then…”
“And then what?”
“Well… it’s reliable. You can live there as long as…”
“Until I die, right? And you’ve already divided the apartment?”
“Mom!” Katya cried out.
“All right, I understand everything,” Anna stood up. “You’re right. I need to make a change.”
“Finally!” Larisa said happily.
“I’m selling the apartment.”
Silence fell over the kitchen.
“What?!” Igor almost choked on his tea.
“I’m selling the apartment and moving to the sea. I’ve dreamed of it my whole life.”
“Mom, have you lost your mind?” Katya turned pale. “Where will you go? How will you live alone?”
“The same way I live here. Only with the sea outside my window.”
“No, this is complete nonsense!” Igor slammed his hand on the table. “You won’t even be able to handle the documents yourself!”
“I’ll learn.”
“And what if you get sick?” Larisa would not stop.
“There are doctors there too.”
“Mom, you only came up with this to spite us,” Katya took her hand. “Think carefully.”
“I have thought carefully. My whole life.”
After the children left, Anna called Galina.
“Galya, I’ve decided. I’m going to sell the apartment.”
“Wow! Seriously? And the children?”
“They’re shocked. They think I’m doing it out of spite.”
“And are you?”
“I’m tired, Galya. I want to live for myself. Here, I feel like I’m in a cage.”
“Come! Apartments near me aren’t expensive. And I know a real estate agent.”
Anna took a deep breath. Inside, everything trembled from fear and excitement at the same time.
In the morning, Katya called.
“Mom, have you calmed down?”
“Yes, I’m calm. And I’ve firmly decided to leave.”
“Mom! This is madness! You’re almost seventy!”
“So what?”
“How will you be there alone? What if something happens?”
“And here what?” Anna felt anger rising inside her. “You’ll put me in a care home and visit once a month?”
“Don’t say that! We love you!”
“A strange kind of love.”
The next day, Anna went to a real estate agency. A young man named Dima listened to her attentively.
“Can you help me figure out the documents? I’ve never dealt with this before.”
“Of course, Anna Mikhailovna. Don’t worry.”
Igor rushed over that evening, slamming the door.
“You’ve already found an agency?! Mom, they’ll simply deceive you, that’s all!”
“They won’t deceive me.”
“How can you be so naive? They’ll trick you in no time!”
“I’m old, but I’m not stupid, Igor.”
Her son dropped onto the sofa.
“Listen, I understand you’re offended. But moving is stressful.”
“And a nursing home isn’t stressful?”
“Mom…”
“No, Igor. It’s decided.”
The following weeks turned into a battle. Katya cried, Igor got angry, Larisa spread rumors about senile dementia. But Anna did not give up. She met with real estate agents, studied options, counted money.
Galina sent photos of apartments in Anapa. Anna chose a small one-room apartment with a sea view.
“So much light, fifteen minutes on foot to the beach. Wonderful!” she said joyfully over the phone.
“Are your family still rebelling?”
“They’re already tired. Yesterday Igor offered to help me move.”
“A truce?”
“A temporary one.”
On the day the sale agreement was signed, Igor came after all.
“Mom, are you absolutely sure?”
“More sure than I’ve ever been.”
“All right. I’ll help with your things.”
When the deal was finished, Anna felt a strange sensation — as if she had taken off a heavy backpack. That evening, she and Igor drank tea in the almost empty apartment.
“I still think you’re making a mistake,” he sighed.
“I have the right,” Anna smiled. “To make my own mistakes.”
A week later, she stood on the threshold of her new apartment with two suitcases. Salty air rushed in through the open windows.
“Well, hello, new life,” Anna whispered, looking at the blue sea in the distance.
The first month by the sea flew by like a single day. Anna woke up early, drank coffee on the small balcony, and watched the sun rise over the horizon. She breathed deeply.
“Anna Mikhailovna, to the beach?” Vera Petrovna, her neighbor and also a pensioner, knocked on the door almost every morning.
“I’m coming, I’m coming!”
They wandered along the shore, collected seashells, and chatted.
“Do your children call?” Vera once asked.
“Rarely. They’re still offended.”
“They’ll get over it. Mine were angry at first too, and now they come with the grandchildren.”
Anna signed up for a painting club at the local cultural center. People just like her gathered there — some could paint, some were only trying.
“You have talent,” said the teacher, Stepan Andreyevich, a gray-haired artist with a small beard. “It’s a pity you didn’t paint for so many years.”
“I worked all my life and raised children.”
“And now we’re catching up?”
“Now we’re catching up.”
Katya called a month and a half later.
“Mom, how are you there?”
“Excellent! I swim, I paint, I’ve made new friends.”
“You paint?” her daughter asked in surprise. “But you never…”
“I dreamed of it when I was young, but gave it up. And now I remembered.”
“And how is your health?”
“Better than in Moscow. Can you imagine, I stopped taking blood pressure pills. I walk a lot, breathe the sea air.”
“Hm… Good, if that’s true.”
There was disbelief in her daughter’s voice.
One morning, Anna met a group of elderly people playing volleyball on the embankment.
“Hey, newcomer!” a lively old man in shorts called to her. “Join us!”
“I don’t know how.”
“We’ll teach you!”
That was how Anna got to know the local “Active Longevity” club. Former teachers, engineers, doctors — all of them refused to merely “live out their days” and came up with something new every day.
“How old are you?” Zinaida Fyodorovna, a former physical education teacher, asked her.
“Sixty-eight.”
“You’re still young!” the woman laughed. “I’m seventy-five, and I go dancing.”
By the end of the second month, Anna had settled in completely. In the morning — the sea and exercise. During the day — painting or an excursion. In the evening — gatherings on the embankment with new friends. She tanned, lost weight, and began to look younger.
And then the children arrived. Without warning.
“Mom?!” Katya froze in the doorway. Igor stood behind her.
“My children!” Anna hugged them. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
“We wanted to surprise you,” Igor muttered. “To check how you’re doing here.”
“Come in, I’ll put the kettle on.”
Katya looked around the apartment with disbelief.
“It’s cozy here.”
“I arranged everything myself. Look, these are my paintings.”
Watercolors hung on the wall — the sea, sunsets, flowers.
“You painted these?” Katya gasped.
“I did. Do you like them?”
“Very much! I didn’t know you could do that.”
Igor was still frowning.
“Mom, we were worried. You didn’t call for two weeks.”
“Sorry, I got busy. We had an artists’ competition here, then an excursion to a winery…”
“You’ve become quite the socialite!” her son smirked.
That evening, Anna took them to the embankment. The pensioners she knew greeted her and waved.
“Anya, volleyball tomorrow?” Petrovich shouted.
“Of course!”
“Mom, you really have your own crowd here,” Igor said in surprise.
“What did you think? That I sit here alone staring at the ceiling?”
That evening, they sat on the balcony. The sea was growing dark, and lights from ships appeared on the horizon.
“Mom, I admit I was wrong,” Igor suddenly said, looking into the distance.
“About what exactly?” Anna poured tea into the cups.
“I thought you wouldn’t manage. That you needed constant supervision.”
“But I managed.”
“More than managed,” Katya nodded. “You look better than you did in Moscow. Even younger.”
“Because I’m living, not just existing.”
The next day, Anna took the children to the beach. They met Stepan Andreyevich with his sketchbook.
“Oh, my best student!” he smiled. “And these are your children?”
“Yes, they came to check whether their mother is still alive,” Anna laughed.
“And have they been convinced?” Stepan winked.
“More than convinced,” Igor replied.
That evening, Katya helped Anna prepare dinner.
“Mom, may I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Are you really not lonely here?”
“Katyusha, I was lonely in Moscow. When you ran in for five minutes, when you treated me like a helpless old woman.”
“We didn’t…”
“Yes, that’s exactly how it was. You had already buried me, only I was still breathing.”
Katya lowered her head.
“Forgive us. We really thought we were taking care of you.”
“I know. But real care means respecting another person’s choice.”
When they said goodbye, Igor hugged her more tightly than usual.
“Mom, maybe we’ll send the grandchildren here for the holidays? Kolya will be happy; he hasn’t been to the sea in a long time.”
“Of course! I have a folding bed here.”
“And Larisa and I will come too,” he added. “If you invite us.”
“Nonsense. You’re my children. This home is yours too.”
They left, and Anna went to the evening meeting of the “Active Longevity” club.
“How were the children?” Zinaida asked. “Did they make sure their mother was all right?”
“Yes. Now they’re even promising to send the grandchildren.”
“You see? And you were afraid.”
A month later, the grandchildren arrived. Kolya, a first-year university student, and Mashka, a high school student.
“Grandma, teach me to paint!” Masha asked.
“And teach me to play volleyball!” Kolya added.
Anna showed them the town, took them to the beach, and introduced them to her new friends.
“Grandma, you’ve become so cool,” Masha once said. “Brave.”
“I was always like that, I just forgot for a while.”
That evening, they sat on the shore. Kolya played the guitar, and Anna’s friends gathered around.
“Grandma, why didn’t you move earlier?” her grandson suddenly asked.
“I didn’t know I had the right to happiness. I thought my task was to help others.”
“And now?”
“Now I understand: in order to give, you need to have something inside. Your own happiness, your own life.”
In September, when the sea had become cooler but the sun was still warm, Anna organized a celebration. Her children came with their families, and her new friends came too. They set the tables right on the beach.
“To our mother!” Igor raised his glass. “Who taught us not to fear change.”
“And to dreams that are never too late to fulfill,” Katya added.
That evening, when the guests had gone, Anna sat for a long time at the water’s edge. Vera Petrovna came up to her.
“What are you thinking about, neighbor?”
“That life is an amazing thing. It took me sixty-eight years to understand one simple truth.”
“What truth?”
“That happiness is not a final destination, but a road. And it is never too late to choose it.”
In the morning, Anna woke up early again. She made coffee and stepped out onto the balcony. The sun rose over the sea, painting the water gold. She took out her sketchbook and began to draw.
A new day.
A new page.
Of her own truly free life.