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Episode #480 - Widowed in Retirement: Wisdom from Those on The Journey
"If 'yet' can change mindset, imagine how many other words and phrases can unlock resilience and stick-to-itiveness."
-Caroline Adams Miller.
INTRODUCTION
Oh, hey there. Welcome to the Retirement Answer Man Show. My name is Roger Whitney. I am your host, and this show is dedicated to helping you not just survive retirement but lean in and actually rock retirement because you've done the work. You're doing the work. Today we're going to finish this series on going from two to one, navigating widowhood by hearing from people that are on this journey to learn some wisdom from them.
Now, this word "yet" is a really powerful word, and I heard it in this context for the first time when I was doing CrossFit.
I was trying to do pull-ups and I couldn't. I had to use these bands to give me assistance. I'm like, I can't do these. The instructor came up to me and she said, "yet I can't do them yet" and she was right. Eventually I could do multiple pull-ups. 10, 20, 30. Woo.
"Yet" is a very powerful word. I just finished a note from Caroline Adams Miller on her book Getting Grit, the Evidence-Based Approach to Cultivating Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose, I'm going to go read the full book now, and there is evidence around how we phrase things. I can't do this versus, I can't do this yet. That's very powerful, there's evidence that suggests that it is.
We're going to see evidence today when we hear from two widows, and then I'm going to read some comments from another widow that lost their spouse and at some point, in their journey, couldn't see having a great life necessarily going through that grief yet they're both living very good lives, great lives.
We've seen Mark this entire month as an exemplar of that as well. So "yet" is a powerful word within the context of what we're talking about.
Now, we're not going to have questions and answers again this week because just from a time constraint standpoint, I don't want this to be a two-hour podcast.
So next month in April, we're going to be focused solely on your questions. If you have a question for the show, you can go to rogerwhitney.com/askroger, and if you are not getting our weekly email where we summarize the show and we give you links to some of the things that we mentioned, maybe it's a book, maybe it's a resource, you can go to 6-shotsaturday.com and you'll get a weekly email where we share resources and give you a summary for the show and a link where you can listen to it at your leisure.
But with that, let's go here from some widows in this instance that are living a great life.
WIDOWS LIVING A GREAT LIFE: EMMA
The first person we're going to chat with is Emma, so let's bring Emma on and have a chat.
So, we're here with Emma. Hi Emma.
Emma: Hi.
Roger: I've had the privilege of walking a little bit of the journey we're going to talk about with you, and that's definitely been an honor. So, you lost your husband, when did you lose your husband?
Emma: In July 2020.
Roger: July 2020. So, it's been about three years. I heard it phrased. A certain way the other day, Emma, that when you lose a spouse that dies prematurely. That's the result of a successful marriage. Do you feel like it was a successful marriage?
Emma: Oh, I do. I do. It wasn't a Disneyland marriage. I like to emphasize to people it wasn't the magical kingdom marriage, and I don't think most real marriages are.
Roger: I agree with you a hundred. And so how did your husband pass?
Emma: He had pancreatic cancer.
Roger: Okay. And how long was that journey of diagnosis to managing that and then ultimately him passing?
Emma: It was three years, and there were many times, as most people have experienced in different types of deaths, where we thought, this is it.
We believed in the, I don't know, magic. That it's all gone and we're well. So yeah.
Roger: Yeah, that's an emotional journey on its own. I've seen those journeys where it is and then the others where it's like three, four times, no, it's not. No, it's not. That's the insidious nature of that.
So here we are three years out.
Let's talk about the non-financial journey that you've been on. It's been three years. What have you observed about what you've had to navigate from a non-financial perspective?
Emma: Yeah, that feels kind of like a giant ocean, but one of the things that I was reading today as advice and I think has been helpful to me is, don't try to swallow the ocean because the non-financial side of it has probably been the most important support as well as making connections as a strong, independent woman. I spent many, many years not asking for help because I was successful so, it just wasn't something that I was experienced in. I do believe that either as a widow or widower, that is one of the key things. Is to ask for help, whether it is emotional or just, I think those people that will just sit alongside you on the journey, not try to fix anything.
Obviously, they can't.
I think also on the non-financial side, it's the reimagining, because we imagined dreams together for many years, and it's the loss of that dream as well. That's a huge transition.
Roger: Two questions that came to mind. One is when you talk about asking for help and you hit on it a little bit, what do you mean by help?
Emma: Oh, I mean, for example, my husband was awesome at fixing things, creating things, whatever it was in our physical environment, and so I had no idea how to do that.
Those people, fortunately, or unfortunately, that showed up at the service and said, let me know if there's anything I can do. It was a huge step for me to call them on the phone and say, by the way, I don't know how to do this. Can you help me with this?
In some ways that was also good because they had a connection with him. So it was, you know, on both sides. Then also other things. I'm not a person who's going to mow the lawn. So just some things like that, but also asking for emotional support and help and different things from my kids that have just never gone there before, because they didn't need it.
Roger: That's interesting on the practical things, because it's hard to ask.
One is they want to, because it gives them agency to help in some way where words don't. As far as you would like, I'm sure it was a blessing to them that you had the courage. Would you call that the courage to say, yes, could you fix this for me?
Emma: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it did take an awful lot of courage, but all things are bittersweet. That's just the way it's going to be.
It was so much better to have someone who had a connection and then there are situations where I had to ask for help where they were just may not know who those people are, but then I had connections with friends and said, hey, do you know anybody that does this or fixes the roofs, or all those kinds of things too.
Roger: Can you think of any examples? Of the wrong kind of help that people tried to offer, whether it was what they said in words or just things that, wow, that really wasn't the best way I wish they wouldn't have approached it that way.
Emma: Oh, yeah. I could write a whole book on the wrong things to say.
One of them. I don't know. They don't necessarily say it right away, but many instances I've had people say, yeah, you had such a wonderful time, and you have such beautiful memories. Yeah, so what? He's not here. I mean, it is not the right thing to say.
Roger: Yeah, that's a whole separate topic. You're right. I think I have a little book on what to say and what not to say and it surprised me when I was reading that.
On the re-imagining. Goals and dreams for you, how long did that take, or have you even gotten there yet? I don't know.
Emma: It's taken a while. I mean, it's still in process and I think also some of those connections getting through that first initial horrible time for me personally, of not even wanting to explore anything and then trying to figure out things that I enjoyed before and making new connections for me personally, I.
Have a travel trailer. We used to camp all the time and I've made connections with women's groups who camp.
I think the other thing that's been very helpful to me is just try something, a small thing and see if there's enough interest, but also see if you're ready.
Also, other things like maybe groups of other widows and widowers that can be very supportive during that time.
Roger: Is that naturally your personality to just come into a group where you don't know anybody? Was that intimidating for you or is that just naturally your personality?
Emma: Oh no, that's not my personality. I do very well once I'm inside a group, but I'm an introvert and it was very hard to break into that, and I was so grateful for other people who already “get” it. The good/bad news. There's an awful lot of people out there who have lost spouses.
Roger: How did you find the courage to do it?
Emma: I think the way that I found the courage was kind of tapping into the fact that once I was through some of the drudgery, then I felt like that's exactly what Leo would have wanted.
I sought out counseling very early.
We were fortunate in a way that we knew that Leo was on his way, that he was going to be leaving this earth, and so I sought out counseling almost immediately.
Roger: Let's switch to the financial side. What insights do you have from three years out?
Emma: One is that many years ago, my husband and I, it all derived out of me having had a bicycle accident many years ago and my mom used to call it "get your ducks in a row" and it was not easy, but it was much simpler because I knew exactly what his wishes were for end of life and after end of life.
Then I also had all the accounts, passwords, all those types of things that I knew, and they were stored ahead of time so that it was a little bit, I wouldn't say easier, it was not quite as complicated.
One of the biggest challenges as a widow widower is that many of those financial decisions will come very fast and furious, and I do recommend that if there are some that you can delay, then do it.
But there will be some that are very much, you need to do this now. You need to change accounts or something. So have those ducks in a row and talk about death ahead of time.
Roger: What was the one thing that you did from a financial standpoint that helped give you confidence that there was stability?
Emma: Oh, I think there were a couple of different things.
We already had a trust in place, so that helped a lot. There just wasn't a lot of movement of assets, that sort of thing from an estate planning process. But also, I mean, I have to say, I was a part of the Rock Retirement Club and I could ask questions without getting a sales pitch.
One of the really hard things for me as a widow was as, at least my perception, is as soon as he passed away, then the advertisements came fast and furious. I think also having a great advisor and knowing, okay, I'm all right today. I don't have to know the answers 40 years from today.
Roger: So that triage from a cash flow perspective had a big impact, just to know, I don't have to worry about how bills are going to be paid in the next year or two.
Emma: Yeah.
Roger: Anything else you want to share to someone that is planning for this eventuality or perhaps is going through it now?
Emma: I think the other thing that I would share is take your time. We're in a society where, at least for me personally, you know, I had a professional life and so did my husband, and so we're used to checking boxes off.
Just take your time.
It doesn't mean take forever and you're going to have grief and stay in it. It just means your time is your time. However, this ends up for you, you are going to have relationship and family complications.
I personally don't know anyone who has not had that, and just know how to take your time and find people that can just kind of walk alongside.
My advice is finding some of those people now, get those one-on-one relationships much stronger. We are all going to need them someday for one reason or another.
Roger: Did you ever think when, after he died, that you weren't going to have a great life now that your awesome life was over?
Emma: Yes, absolutely.
It wasn't like I had not been through many challenges and tribulations and things in my life, but I certainly had, I would say, periods where I just thought, nope, not going to make it out of this one.
It really is the hardest thing I've ever done.
Yes, there were those times, and one of the just personal complications for me was that my husband traveled a lot, so the brain time of assimilating the fact that he is not coming back was much longer.
Once I read about that brain science, that helped a lot. That does take a very long time. That was part of the feeling of it's never going to be better.
Roger: Now sitting here today looking forward do you feel that way or do you see a great life?
Emma: No, no. Now I do see a great life ahead. Does it come with that extended grief? Sure, sure. Bittersweet moments? Absolutely. I'm now planning my travel into 2024, and I have grandkids that are graduating from college, and lots of wonderful friends, and I have made connections that I would not have made had he been here because those are solo connections and they're solo adventures.
So yeah, it's really amazing and it's also like, okay, what thing do I want to try next?
WIDOWS LIVING A GREAT LIFE: MARY
Roger: For another perspective, let's have a chat with Mary.
Mary, first off, thank you for your willingness to share also your wisdom, a part of your journey, because it's going to help somebody. So, thank you for doing that.
Mary: Thank you. This is a great series that you're doing. It's an important topic.
Roger: So, tell me a little bit about your journey. You were married, you lost your husband. How did that happen? How long ago?
Mary: So, we were married for 32 years. In 2015 he was diagnosed with liver disease, which is a terminal condition unless you get a transplant, and he passed away in 2017.
The original prediction the doctors gave us, if you don't get a transplant, this is probably where you're looking at, turned out to be pretty accurate.
During that time, he went from, completely normal to basically not being able to take care of himself. We had to have health aids come in, fortunately, we were in a position where we could afford that, to help take care of him so that I could continue working.
He was already retired. He was on my insurance.
So that happened in 2017.
Roger: Okay, so you're about three- or four-years in. Let's start with a non-financial perspective.
What's one or two things that you experience that you think people should think about as they're doing their planning? Either because they're facing this or likely all of us will face it at some point.
Mary: So, we had the unfortunate advantage of knowing this was a likely outcome and so had time to try to prepare ourselves.
You think you're prepared, but you're really not. One thing I would pass on is I got some really good advice from a close friend who happened to be the HR representative that I work with at my employer.
So, I'm a very organized task person and I'm just going to take a couple weeks, jump right back into work. That's what I need.
When she came to check on me, I told her that was my plan. She really, really tried to convince me that you might think you're going to be ready, but you're not and she did convince me to just wait.
I wound up taking about a month off. I was fortunate that our company allowed me to do that. When I came back after a month, it was very difficult. I can't imagine what it would've been like if I had come back immediately, like I was planning.
My suggestion to people would be is if you feel like, I need to just quickly jump back in, it might not be work, maybe you volunteer somewhere, whatever your normal structure is, I just need to quickly jump into that because that's what gives me some grounding and helps me move forward, really challenge yourself on that.
I would've made a terrible mistake if I had gone back early. So, take the time to grieve, right?
You need more time than you think.
Roger: Why do you think it would've been a mistake in hindsight?
Mary: So early on, it's really difficult to maintain your composure first when you're just home.
Our kids were grown, so after the family that came in after the death went back to their lives then I was in the house by myself.
There are times you just break down for an no reason at all.
I thought I wouldn’t have any issues maintaining my composure at work.
When I went back after a month, it was still very difficult to do that. I would've not been able to do it after just a couple weeks. I don't think I would've been able to focus sufficiently to continue working and contributing the way I was prior to my husband passing away.
So, it would not have been good for me, and it would also have been very hard on my coworkers also, who are like, well, how do we support her? Right.
So yeah, I would just make sure it might not be a month for you, but whatever you think you need to take, challenge yourself to give yourself a little slack there and take a little more.
Roger: I was going to ask about that, because that's been a thread that I've observed in these conversations and with Mark is the awkwardness of everyone else and how to support, help, encourage, and realizing, wow it is awkward for everyone else and it's easy to say the wrong things.
How did you manage that, or did you have any observations of how people interacted?
Mary: So, some people just, I don't know, avoided me isn't the right word, but social interactions I would have with them maybe didn't happen for a while.
I hadn't initiated, and that could have just been out of respect. She'll reach out when she's ready, or that they just didn't know the right way to reach out that wasn't just going to make it worse for me when I went back to work. I would just be very upfront with people. They'd always start with something like, hey, I'm so sorry about your life.
They all knew that my husband was sick, so it wasn't that it was a surprise to any of them. They knew that he had been sick for quite a while.
When they would say, hey, I'm sorry for your loss, I would thank them for that and say that I'm doing a lot better now than I was a month ago.
My mother passed away after she and my father had been married for 56 years. She had been gone about 10 years when my husband passed away, and so the advice my dad gave me was, you're not ever going to get over it. You just learn how to deal with it.
So that's what I would tell people is, I know this is something that's going to be with me for the rest of my life, and every day I find better and better ways to manage and deal with it, and then that would usually make them comfortable. They didn't feel like they had to continue to console me or to walk on eggshells around me because they knew it was a process.
Roger: Yeah, that’s not reaching out, it's giving space, but then wanting to be there. I can see on your end that you needed to practice a lot of grace for the stumbles that other people had in how to approach you or what to say.
Mary: If they said something that was upsetting, I would just try my best not to get upset because I know it was coming from a good place, right?
They just said something that they had no idea would trigger some memory or whatever. I tried to make sure that people didn't feel bad if that happened, I knew they were trying to help me, that it was coming from a good place.
Roger: In the beginning of the series, we talked about two main styles of grieving.
One was having to tell the story and emote and others, and it sounds like Mark in our series who I think you've interacted with, went project management and task oriented. Did you have a style that you used, or did you notice anything?
Mary: Oh, definitely the second.
I put together a list of the things I needed to do, what institutions I needed to contact, and managed it like it was a project. That's just sort of kind of how my mind works.
It was good in that it gave my mind some structure or something to do. Right. I didn't feel like I was helpless.
Roger: Agency. You had agency.
Mary: Yeah, I did. I did. Then it was a few months ago, a friend of one of my daughters passed away unexpectedly, and her husband was just kind of lost. He was an organized person, but he was just lost.
So, I sent my daughter the checklist. I said, I put this together when dad died, and I've just never deleted it. A lot of it was general stuff that would apply to anybody. She passed that on, he’s in the military so he's also very "give me a mission", right?
After the first week or so when he was just trying to figure out what happened to his world because it was a completely unexpected loss, that was very helpful to him.
He had a mission now, right?
Roger: Yes. Forward movement.
So here we are five-ish years later from a life standpoint. How do you feel? How are you doing today?
Mary: Pretty good. So, we had planned when I retired that we were going to relocate to where our daughters live, where our grandchildren are.
As he got more ill, one of the things, I mean this is going to sound silly because it sounds like the movie's, the Titanic, but one of the things he told me is he that I want you to continue with that plan, right?
Go ahead and move, and so I did.
I started looking for a job in San Antonio because I wasn't ready to stop working yet. Although my advisor kept saying I could, I would never quite believe him. I wanted to keep working.
I was 58 when my husband passed away. He was 72, so he was a good number of years older than me, but, so I still wanted to work for some more years and so I just kept looking and within about a year I found a job where our daughters live.
It worked out great.
I get to see them multiple times a week instead of once a month. As my husband got sicker, I wasn't even able to do that.
I'm part of their everyday life now, their kids and them. That's been a huge help. If I was still living alone hours and hours away, I don't know that I would be in the same place that I am now, having family around is a huge plus. They help me. I help them.
Roger: There was a thread there I wanted to just pull on a little bit, which was the Titanic. He verbalized and asked you to live.
Mary: Yeah, that's right. That's what he did.
Roger: He did that because this was something that was coming.
He had the opportunity to do that. I've had clients where one was killed in a car wreck. There was never that opportunity of things you wish you have said.
Mary: It was a blessing that we had that difficult talk, in a way we were really lucky we had that opportunity that somebody who lost someone to a car crash, a heart attack, doesn't have that opportunity.
We had the opportunity to talk about my life should he not get a transplant, what he wanted my life to be.
Roger: That's wonderful.
Mary: The second non-financial thing I wanted to mention was that pets are a wonderful thing.
We've always had two or three dogs. When he passed away, the first time I went out of the house I wasn't coming back to a completely empty house, right? The dogs run to the door to see me. Don't underestimate the healing power of having pets, especially affectionate pets. I can't speak to cats. I've never had cats, but dogs for sure, right? They're great.
Roger: Unconditional love.
Mary: That's right. They're excited to see me. If I step out to put the garbage out, I come back in and they're all excited.
If you don't have a pet, give yourself some time because that's a commitment you're undertaking, but think about it.
It's been really nice having that, like you say, unconditional love and just company so you're not in a completely empty house if you're in a situation where you were already an empty nester.
Roger: I imagine one of the things that goes away when you lose a spouse is simply the touch.
The hug. The kiss.
Sherlock will lick my face and Shauna doesn't lick my face, but she does kiss me and that would go away.
Having a dog as an example gives you some love and affection. Physical affection, right?
Mary: Yeah. I have one dog now that I just got last year. I had a 12-year-old Great Dane that got cancer, had to be put down.
Roger: We have a great Dane. I love Danes.
Mary: I now have a rescue dog. When I'm watching TV, right, he jumps up on the couch and lays down, puts his head in my lap. So, it's nice. You talk to your pets, right?
Roger: Great Danes are like lap dogs, just big lap dogs.
Mary: She would do the same thing. She would jump up on the couch and put her head down on my lap while was watching TV. Having a pet helps give you something to do, something to be responsible for.
Roger: Good idea. Anything else you want to share on the non-financial end?
Mary: No, I think I'm good.
Roger: If we switch domains to the financial end. What pieces of wisdom do you have there from your journey?
Mary: The one thing that I experienced was, I consider myself very organized, I had original wills in my safety deposit box, I had copies and file cabinets, so I went to the safe deposit box where I was sure the originals were, and it turned out I had another copy there. So, I did not have the original. That made going through the will so much harder because every state is different, right? But in my state, if you don't have the original will, it's profitable to proceed, but everybody who's mentioned has to agree.
We had one person, a child from a previous marriage who wouldn't agree, just felt like they were being treated unjustly. They just didn't get along with their dad and didn't want to sign off on it. It delayed the will for months, which cost me thousands of dollars when I went to trade in the car, because I could not trade the car in. It was titled in both our names. We had two cars, I only needed one. I was going to trade both of them in for a new one. I couldn't do that until the will was done and caused needless stress.
It sounds like a tiny thing, but make sure you know where the original copy of your will is.
The other thing it made me realize is that I handled all the finances, so there really was no transition there when my husband passed away. But it got me to thinking about, well, what happens when I pass away, and it falls to my daughters? I didn't really have a list of accounts.
I know my dad had created a binder with all that kind of information. So, he's 92, when he passes away, we'll have all that information. I realized I needed to do a better job of leaving a record for my children, especially if it was sudden.
It wasn't something that affected me when my husband passed away, but it was something that I realized I needed to do for my daughters to be set up for when I pass away.
Roger: Yeah, and that's also a non-financial gift too, from a stress standpoint.
They're already grieving and dealing. The compounding of all the logistical stuff.
Mary: My daughter's mother-in-law passed away a few years ago and she had been very organized. My daughter was talking about how much easier it made it for her husband and her husband's brother to do all the things they needed to do, that she had left everything in such good order.
They knew where things were, they knew passwords. I hadn't really thought about any of that because I've done that our entire marriage. I was the person who did that. He didn't want to know how to do that, so I didn't leave anything. But then nowadays you need to leave a sort of digital legacy, because the policies for getting access to those things vary depending on the provider. You don't want to create any more stress for whoever's handling your estate than you need to.
Roger: It's a little bit like a garden. It takes a lot to set up. We're in the process of resetting ours, Mary, because we're going out of the country. We're trying to set it up a little bit at a time, and then once you have it set up, it's like a garden in that it just takes a little bit of tending from time to time.
Mary: I know there's, like with Fidelity, they have a place in Fidelity where you can go and maintain that kind of stuff for when you pass away so that your beneficiary can access it. I haven't decided between leaving them something in paper or using some electronic service.
My password manager has an emergency access feature that I could use so that they could have access to all my passwords easily.
How have you decided where you want to keep yourself?
Roger: So, we use Everplan.
Mary: I'm very interested in learning about that. I've heard you mention that a couple of times. That's on one of my lists.
Roger: Within the club you get free access to it, it's part of the club.
Mary: Yeah. That's very exciting.
Roger: It's structured like TurboTax in that as you're setting it up, it will interview you and ask you to organize things. The nice thing about it is you can assign deputies, which is, let's say Mary, I wanted you to have access, you were my CPA®, I could give you access to my tax documents, but nothing else.
It has features where, If I die, there's a protocol, and let's say you were the deputy, you don't get access to anything but if I die, you get access to everything and there's a protocol to confirm that I have actually died.
You can access it, like if when we go to Europe, if I needed a copy of my passport, I could keep all those things in there. So, we're going to use that. Then we use a password manager. It's just setting it up. Right? It's putting it out and getting it in there.
But I've heard binders, which always feel like it's less secure. In some ways, well, you can't cyber hack it, right?
Mary: Or what if Everplan goes out of business, right?
Roger: Right. I mean, you have that, or what if it gets hacked? I mean, Equifax, one of the largest credit bureaus got hacked. I think even if, and this is what we say in the club in terms of Everplan, and this isn't a pitch, is that even if you don't feel comfortable having it there, it's good to use just as a guide so you can create your own analog version. So that's what we use.
Any last words of wisdom you'd like to share to someone who either knows they're about to deal with this, or are dealing with this, or just incorporating it in their planning? Anything else you want to share?
Mary: I think the advice my dad gave me would be it, right?
I've talked to some people who have had a spouse or loved one pass away and felt on day one that they would feel like that for the rest of their life.
There were others who expected that after some period of time, it sounds cold, but basically like it never happened, right? That it wouldn't be a sad thing, and neither of those are true.
It gets better, but it's going to leave a hole forever, and you just have to learn how to manage it. So don't be hard on yourself because you feel like, oh, I should be feeling better by now or I feel guilty because I didn't think about my husband today.
Give yourself some slack.
Roger: You miss your husband.
Mary: Oh yeah, for sure, for the rest of my life.
Roger: And you're going to have a great life, right?
Mary: Yes. It'll just be a different life. Because he was so much older than me I always knew that it was likely I would be a widow. I didn't expect it to happen as early as it did though, so that was a surprise. But I have a great life now. It's just a different life, right?
Roger: Mary, thank you so much for sharing.
Mary: Oh, no problem. Thank you so much for reaching out.
WIDOWS LIVING A GREAT LIFE
Roger: The last bit of wisdom we're going to share today comes from a widow earlier in the process and she preferred to share it in written form, so I'm going to read a lot of what she wrote. I'll do some light editing just for flow purposes and try to give it the respect it's due.
She says,
"Hey, Roger. I just finished listening to today's podcast and appreciated listening to the wisdom of someone who's walked this path longer than I have.
What I write is through the lens of being very new to the grieving process.
Some quick background. My husband and I met in college, graduated and married at a shockingly young age. We started our family two years after we were married and have three fabulous grown children and three grandchildren.
I am a teacher, my husband was in the Navy, and then transitioned to corporate life, and as part of that, we moved to London and live life in Europe.
We had a blissful travel filled few years in London before he was diagnosed with an incredibly rare form of cancer. He went through a series of brutal surgeries, chemo, radiation treatments before being declared "cancer free".
We finished our time in London and then moved to Switzerland where everything was great.
Until it wasn't.
He was diagnosed with a recurrence, right as COVID was getting underway. He went through cycles of surgeries and treatments, had periods of feeling well and more treatments, and he did so with dignity and positivity. We hiked every weekend, road bikes, went swimming, and traveled whenever we could.
He died right after we spent the weekend hiking in the UK with our kids, and our grandkids. He died at age 59. It's still hard to process. "
I asked her, what are some things that you learned about reimagining your life?
She says,
"Fortunately, or unfortunately, we spent a lot of our time apart due to deployments, and I've always been independent and capable of managing things on my own.
The bitter pill here is that we were so happy to finally spend time together and make forever plans not dictated by the Navy or corporate life, and many of those plans will change.
I'm slowly trying to imagine our life plans becoming my life plans and seeing what still fits and what I'll discard and what will morph into something else.
I cannot hold onto plans and dreams, out of love and memories as tempting and as good as that feels to me right now."
I asked, what did you learn about the practical side of grief?
She said,
"I've always been a prepared person, although nothing can prepare you for the loss of a spouse.
My dad died right before my husband got sick and I was helping my mom manage the estate settlement. I was so impressed with how organized they were and yet horrified at how complex the process can be, I immediately started a need-to-know binder. My kids call this my death binder. I printed end of year statements for every single account, put them into a hard copy binder and an encrypted file. I do a beneficiary check and account review every January.
I have another file that has laptop login information and passwords and vaults and phone access, et cetera. My husband would roll his eyes when I spent hours rooting around the documents, but this information was a godsend in the months that followed.
I learned that in the initial shock that comes after death, the instinct is to start doing.
The rush to cancel things and notify people is unnecessary and takes away the precious moments you have to process the event.
I recommend doing nothing except be with your family. Everything will still be there in a few days. The day after my husband died, I took my daughters to hike one of my husband and I's favorite trails.
It felt like a good tribute to him and what we love to."
I asked her anything that would have made it less difficult?
"This is more things I learned along the way than a way to make things less difficult. Number one, our joint spouse led insurance accounts were canceled and rewritten immediately.
Spending hours on the phone a few days after a spouse dies isn't ideal. It can wait a week or two.
Number two don't cancel cell phones or email accounts right away. Many online accounts use two factor authentication to access accounts, and you may need to access them to pay bills, manage autopay, and handle social media accounts.
I still have his cell phone number and will probably keep it until the legal financial tasks are complete.
Number three, make sure you have someone as your legacy contact for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. This will allow surviving members to manage your social media according to your wishes.
Number four, accounts solely in the name of the deceased will be locked for a period of time. Plan on having money set aside to deal with immediate expenses and other accounts. The process of settling accounts can take three to six months."
Then I asked her, is there anything family, friends did well or could have done better?
She says,
"This is a hard question because everyone's path is different.
One thing that she noted though is our kids were rock stars and gathered all the social media posts, and comments, and cards, and notes from phone calls, and compiled them so we could sit and read through them together at night.
This was helpful because it brought such joy, but it also allowed us to read the messages of love and comfort without having to provide comfort to others. That may sound harsh, but so many people who contact a grieving family want comforting themselves, which is a heavy lift when you're in shock and in grieving.
My girls eventually published the messages in a book of memories from a favorite company. I cherish this."
What is your fondest memory of your time with your spouse?
She says,
"Honestly, after spending so much time apart due to deployments, we were always stoked to have time together. If I had to pick, it would be our time traveling together.
We were perfect travel partners. We prioritized family and hosted gatherings twice a year. Those are fabulous memories."
What are you most excited about the future? I asked.
"The possibilities. Where should I live? Do I still want to work or should I prioritize other things? What will solo travel feel like after so many years of traveling with my partner?
After years of prioritizing others? I am the master of my own destiny, which feels liberating. And terrifying at times."
She concludes to say,
" A bit rambly, apologize for that."
I don't think it was rambly at all. I think it was a beautiful, honest perspective that I have no doubt is going to help others that are on this journey as well.
So, thank you.
TODAY’S SMART SPRINT SEGMENT
On your marks, get set.
and we're off to set a little baby step you can take in the next seven days to not just rock retirement, but rock life.
In the next seven days, think of that word "yet".
Catch yourself when you're defining and with limiting terms. I can't have a great retirement, yet. I don't know how to have that conversation, yet.
You're stronger than you can ever imagine.
ROCK RETIREMENT PLEDGE
At the end of the show, we reaffirm the pledge of this show.
Focus, curiosity, freedom, you taking action.
I think this episode has leaned into another one which is authenticity.
No pretense. Trying to be humble, trying to be respectful. Hearing the stories of real people going through the things that many of us go through.
It's real, and I appreciate Mark, Emma, Mary, and the last lady, for sharing a little bit of their journey in order to help you and I rock retirement.
The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance references are historical and does not guarantee future results.
All indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested in directly. Make sure you consult your legal, tax or financial advisor before making any decisions.