The widow of the "country's gardener" is happy to let interested people into the garden, as she thinks this is also a way to preserve the memory of her late husband.
It's been three years since Gazda Bálint died: the country's most famous gardener was 101 years old at the time of his death. His widow, Antónia, spoke to BEST Magazine about the grief and the legacy that her husband left for the country.
"Gyurka must have contracted covid in the hospital, because it appeared in the news that a 101-year-old man died of covid. But that wasn't the cause of his death, he had a tumor, not even one that we didn't even know about," said the widow, who also said that farmer Bálint fell ill in Siófok, from where the ambulance took him to Budapest.
"I was with him the whole time, I sat by his bed the whole time. He wanted me to bring him home, but his condition did not allow it. On Sunday, when I came from him, it did not occur to me that it would be our last meeting. I barely got home when they called from the hospital that he had died," recalled the late farmer's wife of that period.
As he says, it often happens that strangers walk by their house and ask him to see their garden.
"In June, as the anniversary of her death and then her birthday came, many people walked in front of our house and asked me to let them in, let them see where she lived, what kind of garden Gyurka took care of. I'll never forget, he was relaxing after lunch and about to fall asleep when they called in the afternoon to see how the gardener's garden was. I said he was sleeping, I didn't wake him up. When I told him what had happened, he snapped at me about how I thought I would send anyone away. Therefore, I believe that if he were alive, he would have let these interested people in, so I was happy to open the door of our house to them. Our home, the garden, has become a popular place, and this obliges me for the rest of my life to preserve Gyurka's memory here as well", said Antónia about her thoughts.
