Radmila to leave her Belgrade house to her neighbor after children drifted away

Radmila, a 74-year-old pensioner from Belgrade, has decided to leave her family home to the neighbor who cared for her daily rather than to her four children. Left alone after her husband's death and living on a pension as her only regular income, she says the decision grew out of repeated absences and what she describes as emotional distance from her children.

From a busy family house to quiet rooms

Married at 19 to her first love, Radmila spent decades raising four children and building a household she hoped would remain a gathering place for future generations. After her husband's death the large house became quiet, and visits from family thinned.

"When they were small, I didn't sleep at nights. When they grew up, I thought the time would come for us to drink coffee together, to hear how they are. I never supposed that I would be counting the days by how long it has been since my phone rang," Radmila says, her voice trembling.

Her children, she says, often respond when asked about visits by explaining they have their own lives. "They say they have their own lives. I understand, they have jobs, families, obligations. But is it so hard to spare an hour for your mother?" she asks.

What troubled her most recently, she adds, were repeated suggestions from the children that she should move into a nursing home. "They tell me that it would be best for me to go to a nursing home. They say someone there will take care of me. And I ask myself, is that why I raised them, so one day they would leave me to strangers?" she recounts.

While her children grew more distant, Radmila found a constant companion in her neighbor, Milena, who comes by every day with meals, picks up medicine and simply spends time over coffee. "She doesn't ask me if I have money. She doesn't ask what she will get. She just says, 'Neighbor, how are you today?' That question sometimes means more than anything," the pensioner says candidly.

Because of that care, Radmila has changed her will. "I'm changing the will. I will not leave the house to those who remember I exist only when something needs to be signed. I will leave it to the person who showed me that family is not always what is written in the birth register," she explains.

Looking at an old wedding photograph of her and her late husband, Radmila says she never regretted marrying her first love but regrets that the love they gave their children did not return. "I married my first love and I have never regretted it. I'm only sorry that the love the two of us gave to our children failed to find its way back to us," she says.

She accepts that her choice may provoke disagreements among relatives and neighbors, but says it has given her peace. For Radmila, inheritance should reward the people who showed real care and humanity when it was needed most, not simply those connected by blood.

Photo: press material from the event