Dollars, scraps and what we leave behind

Do we pour our savings into a retirement community? Or do we hold on to our money to pass on to our kids and grandkids? That’s a real question for those deciding whether or not to move into a continuing-care retirement community such as the one we now live in. It was certainly a choice we wrestled with.

Not that any financial heritage we pass along to our loved ones would be substantial, given the life-style choices we made. But, still, we’d like to hand something of practical value down to the kids.

We feel the effects of our decision to move here every month when we get the statement from our bank. The increase in the community’s monthly fees this year hasn’t helped. Even though retired, we find it necessary to budget our spending and continue to search for ways to cut down. I guess that makes us like most other people in our nation today.

We remind ourselves of the benefits of being here, that the high fees today ensure continuing care in the future when we’ll probably need to be in assisted-living or perhaps the memory care wing. Even if we should one day run out of money, this community will still care for us.

But I grieve the lack of an inheritance to pass on.

Until I remember that I do have something of value to leave my kids as an inheritance.

My scrapbooks!

(The exclamation point indicates a blending of enthusiasm and sarcasm.)

I started scrapbooking when our kids were small, long before scrapbooking became an expensive national craze, a craze that has since died down. I needed a way to manage the growing collection of photos, childish artwork, and assorted memorabilia that threatened to overflow our storage space. And I wanted a way to hold on to the memories of those growing up years, a way to provide continuity and stability to our rather nomadic way of life between two countries.

So every fourth year when our family came home from Bolivia to Oregon, I’d sort through the stuff, make my choices, and artistically glue them into the Book. Then I’d throw everything else away without compunction (and without the kids knowing). It kept the clutter down.

And it made a wonderful contribution to capturing our family story. The kids loved the books, as did Hal and I. We named them “The Thomas Family Chronicles,” and the volumes grew over the years. When David brought his future wife Debby home to meet us, they sat together on the couch while David showed her the Chronicles, not telling her that this was the “test.” She passed.

The kids are grown, married, and now the grandkids are starting the marriage cycle. Life goes on. And so do the Chronicles. I keep them up; it’s a good place to display photos of the grandkids and chart all the changes.

I am slowing down, partly due to the high cost of maintaining a color printer. Partly because they take up room. Each year occupies less pages.

My question: although the kids loved these books growing up, will they actually want them taking space on their bookshelves someday? All 18 volumes?  I’m not so sure about that.

But, really, why worry? When I’m gone it won’t be my problem.

I am sorry about the money though. 

Some sample pages: 

                        1976 La Paz, our city

                            David, kindergarten self-portrait

                            2002, on an Oregon beach with the grandkids

                                 2007, Teaching in Lima, Peru

2008, youngest grandchild, Peter

2013, Akagera (Rwanda) safari with grandkids

                            2015, Aymara Quaker women at Yearly Meeting

Thank you for indulging me. If the kids don't want these, would you be willing to take them off my hands? I'd love to see your scrapbooks.

Retirement or engagement

 

As I write this, on the other side of the world Russian troops are bombarding cities in Ukraine, and countries around the globe are on alert. An unspeakable threat of nuclear war wavers on the margins of sight.

At times it overwhelms me. Other times I forget about it altogether. Life just goes on.

Last week we attended an extended family gathering to celebrate Celeb’s 16^th birthday. Food, presents, the hubbub of multiple conversations, the chaos of excited kids—it all contributed to the party atmosphere. But looking back on the evening, I realized that no one even mentioned Ukraine. I certainly didn’t. Didn’t even think about it. And now I’m wrestling with guilt.

So I ask, am I becoming paranoid as I age? Would bringing up a world crisis even have been inappropriate? Shouldn’t life just go on? Didn’t Caleb deserve his party?

Another thing that acerbates my wrestling is life here in the retirement community. Our needs are so well taken care of. It’s like a place of refuge where we’re sheltered from the trauma of the outside world. As I search for metaphors, I come up with a bubble, a cocoon, or an isolation ward. These are all probably exaggerations, but they contain truth. Ongoing pandemic restrictions add to the sense of separation.

I’m sure this separation from the world is not the intention of those who administer this facility. Protection, yes; deliberate isolation from everything else, no. And yet silence over the crisis in Ukraine troubles me.

The other evening Hal and I watched the evening news, as usual, taking time to pray afterwards. As we prayed, someone knocked on our door, rather timidly as though hesitant to disturb us at this hour. It was a single lady who lives in the apartment just down the hall. She had also been watching the news and was experiencing fear. She just needed someone to talk to. So we talked and prayed together. She may have been a little more peaceful as she returned to her rooms.

The next day the community-life director visited each residence with a small gift and the activity calendar for the following month. As usual, many educational, social, and service opportunities have been planned. That’s good. It’s one of the advantages of living here.

She then asked me if I had any concerns, and I told her of my dis-ease with the lack of any formal attention to what was happening in Ukraine and that the planned activities didn’t include a means of talking about the crisis, better understanding the situation, and facing it together. She listened respectfully, suggested the prayer meeting committee might organized a special Zoom meeting, and said she’d bring it up with the staff. Later that week the community newsletter announced there would be several minutes of silence for world peace the following Monday. It seemed like a weak response.

This is a Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC), and as such includes neighborhoods of those in assisted living, a memory-loss unit, and the health center where people need 24/7 care. The staff needs to address the needs of these neighborhoods, and for most of these residents, protection, shelter, and facing the end of life are the prime issues. But the rest of us residents, the majority, are classified as independent, and we have different needs. Some of us need to keep connected to the world around us and respond to what’s happening.

The responsibility for our responses ultimately rests with each individual, in spite of the protective atmosphere of a retirement center. And the struggle for an appropriate response is certainly not limited to retired people. Maybe it has more to do with being human, privileged, and geographically removed from the suffering.

This leads me to a comparison of the words, “retirement” and “engagement.” In a certain sense, they’re opposites. “Retirement” carries the connotations of withdrawal, receding, moving back, even going to bed. A retiring person is exceedingly shy. Of course, a common connotation is simply a planned withdrawal from one’s working life or profession. A retirement community is composed of these persons. Most of the residents here are not at all shy, although most of us enjoy an afternoon nap.

“Engagement” is active and involved. It refers to a moving forward, facing an issue, joining other people, and doing stuff. It contrasts to the basic meaning of retirement.

So, can a retired person be engaged in the life around her? Can he be actively involved in the issues of the day? Should she want to know what’s happening in Ukraine and what she can do about it? These are all obviously rhetorical questions. Even so, life in a retirement community requires extra effort (and a little help from the institution) to engage in the world outside.

 Query: How do you face the tension between retirement and engagement?

Changing planets

Several years ago we found ourselves in possession of an invitation to interplanetary travel. The prospect both excited and frightened us. We lacked the training such a venture would require. We didn’t feel ready to actually change planets and begin colonizing in a new reality. What to do?

In other words, we had come face to face with the decision to move into a retirement community. At the time it seemed like a capitulation, like we would be giving up our independence and admitting that we were old. Grim thought.

We faced a decision almost everyone comes up to if they live beyond 60 years: How and where to spend the rest of our lives? There are only so many options. Some prefer to stay in their ancestral home, perhaps a farmhouse, and be the hub of extended family activities. Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go and so on. This is an American ideal, a Thomas Kincaid calendar painting. It seems that not many actually get to enjoy this ideal.

Others downsize and live in a smaller dwelling, valuing their independence for as long as possible. A move to a Home may be a future consideration, thinking of the need for assisted living. But it’s not a pleasant prospect. And there’s always hospice care at the end of the line.

Some decide to live with their kids or grandkids. This has its advantages and disadvantages, for each of the generations living together.

And many older people, at some point, make the leap to a planned senior living situation. These vary in what they offer and in what they cost, from nursing homes to independent living set-ups with no medical help, to continuing care retirement communities. Whatever the choice, the decision is complex and emotionally charged.

Hal and I had been on the waiting list for a faith-based continuing care retirement community for years, thinking that sometime in our mid-70s or early 80s we’d make the move. When we received notice that we were at the top of the list, it surprised us. We were still too young, or so we thought. Hal had just turned 73 and I was a very young 72. It wasn’t time. Or was it?

Economic circumstances and a change in our working life (retirement), plus the fact that some of our peers had moved in and claimed to love it, all enticed us. The Community was willing to hold the apartment we were interested in for a month. We would then have two months to downsize our stuff, make repairs to our condo, sell it, and make the move. Too fast, plus too young, made the decision hard, to say the least.

We asked our kids their advice and they were both positive. We prayed a lot, of course. And we finally agreed to change planets. To enter a new phase of life. Having no clear word from the Lord, it seemed a logical move to make. But up to the last packing box, we weren’t absolutely sure this was the right thing to do. Interplanetary flight is scary.

(To be continued)