Paved with Gold

Wildflowers

János sat on his cot with his head in his hands. The emotion he had been suppressing all day started to rise again when he saw his mother and grandmother. He never imagined his grandfather would ever say such a thing to him. Family had always been their main priority, their main support system. His grandparents took them in when János was a baby after his father suddenly died. They only ever had each other. 

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Lorinc Fodor was a carpenter by trade who lived in the same town as the Mezei' s. He was a considerable amount older that Katalin Mezei, about 10 years or so, but that didn't stop her from fawning over the strong carpenter gentleman who spent his days fixing storefronts in town and patching cottage rooftops in the neighborhood. When Katalin was 18, she started being a seamstress with her mother. Around midday, Katalin would deliver the items she and her mother had fixed for the townspeople. Women's dresses, children's clothes, pillow cases, flour bags. She usually had a large load. She always saw Lorinc somewhere in the town, and he would offer to help carry her items. They would chat along her route, talking about the weather, or their jobs and families. She was intrigued that such a handsome man that made a decent amount of money would still be single at almost 30 years old. It definitely wasn' t normal. She had heard rumors from other women in town that he had a wife when he was younger, but she died. She also heard that she left him at the altar. No one actually knew his story, and women liked to make rumors about the man from Miskolc. 

Through her midday trips around town with Lorinc, she learned a lot about him. He was born in Miskolc, a Hungarian city in the northeast part of the country that borders Slovakia. He moved down south to Szeged, that borders Serbia and Romania, for work. His father had been a carpenter as well and he made good money in Miskolc. However, he moved to Szeged after his parents died. She even learned that the rumors about his love life were not true. He explained that he was never married because he had not found the right person yet. 

They saw each other every day for months. He helped carry her items through town, and he would walk her back to her parents cottage and greet them. One June afternoon, Katalin was carrying her items through town when she spotted Lorinc standing by the bakery. Next to him was a wooden cart, with a bushel of wildflowers inside. He had the biggest smile on his face. When she reached him he explained that he made the cart for her to carry her items every day, and when her eyes started to well up with tears, he dropped to his knees and asked her to marry him. 

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János had heard that story a million times. He asked his mother to tell it to him over and over again as a small child. He loved hearing about the man he never met. It gave him a sense of pride to know that his father was a loving, caring gentleman. His parents were married that same summer, and János Fodor was born that following June in 1886. Shortly after he was born, his father contracted Scarlet Fever and died. Katalin, as well as her parents, were heartbroken. They had all loved Lorinc. 

The household went downhill after his death. With a baby to feed, Katalin had to take several jobs at once, and the semi-retired field worker Josef decided to go back to full time picking to help raise his grandson. His grandmother Zsuzsanna continued to be a seamstress for the town and occasionally helped Katalin with her cleaning jobs.  Nevertheless, they made ends meet, and János was raised with all the love in the world. Sometimes he forgot he was even missing a father, until he sees the wooden cart tucked in the corner of the kitchen, always holding wildflowers.