And Then You Die

I was told way back in the mid 90s that you can plan for retirement, but you don't put your life on hold in the process.

I had an elderly patient that required daily dressing changes. I was lucky enough that he lived walking distance from me, because he left for dialysis every morning at 6am. That meant I had to be at his house by 5 am. So we started our mornings together with coffee and a lot of conversation.

He said that his dream had always been to live in Florida. I shared with him my dream of visiting the UK. and that I want to walk on the moors at night. He asked me what I was waiting for. I told him I planned to go after I retired. He told me that was a huge mistake. He then told me a story that I think changed me and the way I lived my life since then.

He told me how he had owned a store in New York. Him and his wife lived above the store, and that store was the center of their life. They worked all their lives with the dream of moving to Florida, and living out their years together on the golf course and on the beach. He said they retired, and moved to Florida, and two months later he was in the hospital.

Three months after retirement he is was barely holding on and the only dream he had, was hoping to live long enough to celebrate his next wedding anniversary. My patient told me if you have a dream, don't put it on hold.

I didn't. One month after he passed, I took my 31 day tour of the UK. I have not put a single dream on hold since.

I tell you this story because I know of an ex co-worker that died the day of her retirement. We gave her a going away party, She never got the gifts to her car. She passed out in the parking lot from a heart attack, and died in the hospital. Another friend's husband retired, and two months later he died in his sleep. I have a family member through marriage, that came to visit his ailing Aunt, he had just retired a couple months before, he died in the airport on his way back home. I have a cousin that died on the way home from the store, a few weeks before retiring. All of these were before COVID.

With all the talk recently about death and dying, it got me to thinking. Life is what you make it. We are all going to die. We should spend more time living our best life, then we do fearing the inevitable.

We should plan for a comfortable life after work. Retirement is not where we should store our dreams of things we want to do. Retirement is the best where we reminiscence on all the dreams we have fulfilled in our lives.

I am wishing All a Happy New Year, and hope we all will live the best lives we can make for ourselves. Here is to life. Death is a destination, let us enjoy the ride until we get there.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

Sorry. There is some ... drama .... in my life at present. Your post is like an onion. Now I need a tissue.

Sometimes life doesn't go as we'd like. Sometimes we try to do everything right and still screw it all up. So what you say is true. Best to just get on with it.

You know a lot of dead people!! Really good advice pal .
You’re a long time dead.
a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

Great post!!!

Everything you've stated is very true. Never 'wait' to live your life! That is a mistake from the word 'Go'.

I've known too many people to count that have keeled over dead shortly after their retirements. Don't want that to be me!!

originally posted by: Scotchjimmy
You know a lot of dead people!! Really good advice pal .
You’re a long time dead.
a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

Well I have lost more friends than I have left.

I know I am on that list somewhere, and moving to the top fast.

I hope my legacy will include a crap load of tales to be told at family gatherings, and tons of laughter with each telling.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn

originally posted by: Scotchjimmy
You know a lot of dead people!! Really good advice pal .
You’re a long time dead.
a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

Well I have lost more friends than I have left.

I know I am on that list somewhere, and moving to the top fast.

I hope my legacy will include a crap load of tales to be told at family gatherings, and tons of laughter with each telling.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

There are a lot of myths in life and one is that "I can always do whatever".
I know to many people that just waited to long and never did the things they always wanted to do. My mother in law is a perfect example. She was married to a drunk for thirty two years before we finally convinced her to get a divorce.
Her dad and sister did everything they could to convince her work it out.
She has been the happiest in the last twenty years since getting away from such a toxic person.
Bought a home and new car, traveling and finally able to retire. Things she could never do with him around.
If only she would have made that change years earlier.

It is a balance. You have to be frugal and save so you aren't destitute in retirement. A lot of people live life to the fullest and then are broke in retirement and wind up struggling / working during their last years.

I realize I'll never complete my bucket list but figure I will get to do a few things I've always wanted to do. I've been fortunate to be able to travel and see things most of my life. However, I definitely have not lived it up as much as I'd like. I've been coming to terms with mortality as I am nearing 50. I decided I want to get my dream car.... a Jeep Wrangler 392 so I put one on order. I said screw it. Only live once. It won't break me financially and want to enjoy something frivolous and completely unnecessary.

My only regret is not being more adventurous in career and life when I was younger and nothing to lose.

I have no plans for retirement. Couple of cans of beans maybe.
Once I'm too old to make a living I'm outta here.
Life is overrated anyway. Especially when you are old.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Life goes by super fast.... it seems like you have all the time in the world when you are young, but then you look up and you are in your 50s. This is one of the reasons people are so bad about saving for retirement.... they always think they will start tomorrow and then they never start. Next thing they know, they are nearing retirement with nothing saved.

originally posted by: PapagiorgioCZ
I have no plans for retirement. Couple of cans of beans maybe.
Once I'm too old to make a living I'm outta here.
Life is overrated anyway. Especially when you are old.

The closer you get to old the less you feel that way.

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn

I was told way back in the mid 90s that you can plan for retirement, but you don't put your life on hold in the process.

Oddly enough before I got reading your post I inserted several words other than retirement and they all fit the scheme. Death was one of those words and then reading the rest of your post it was rife with tales of death.

Suicide is an interesting word to place in there instead of retirement... if one realizes that their life was already "on hold" they might make some changes to their plans instead of gun. razor blades etc.

A guy asked me if I was suicidal; I just burst out laughing... He got angry; I suppose he didn't see his vocational choice of law enforcement as a livelihood as "Suicidal" same as military is. Since it is impossible to explain anything to anyone when they are angry; and he didn't ask why I was laughing? The point became moot.

You know why people don't need an education in law? Social norms and sign posts as reminders. When someone is ignorant of a law they need to be educated of that law first... since states vary in oh so many laws it's so stupid that most of the FOP being so moved around the country don't even know state by state laws and police exactly how the previous state policed things... as if those things in either or even several were ever federally constitutionally legal. That's why people don't like the federal they make federally illegal laws too and setting that bad example the states say since they do it? We can too.

Sorry for the tirade but it is poignant and restricting movement is what many totalitarian regimes do before they perform their hostile takeover of the peoples rights. What was "power to the people"? It was a reminder that no elected official would be in such a position if people did not put them there. So seeing the fall out of all of those vying for power appointing friends and colleagues and using affirmative action and probable but not likely as the cause and excuse to terrorize and extort citizens out of their hard earned exchange of time and wages beyond taxation only supports the idea that everyone needs or requires a representation that is "not self" as in driver's license or affirm some stupid book that holds a concept of "brothers keeper and and eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" meaning it has been illegally operating without separation of church and state... hence why what gets considered "minority populations" really means anyone not christian thinking they are majority only makes for a mob rule.

I don't think it's a tragic story that guy told you OP; I think he and his wife lived their dream in NY and then planned another dream in FL... and perhaps they both simply regretted they waited so long to retire and right on your shoulders went that burden but seeing it as a positive you never noticed the burden. Just like all of the above... police and military not seeing themselves as suicidal are blind to it, christians not seeing themselves as a burden on all who are not "the real majority" live in fear and try to rule even harder against all those that are not... when they never had any power, same as "Christ" hanging on a cross thinking he did before hand, if he wasn't enlightened to that before being nailed on it? He sure was afterwards.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

S&F.

Your title..

And Then You Die

Right, onwards.
I've never been married and I have no children. Problem is, I worked 12s and 24s for 30 something years. 30 years I have beaten my body to the point that I needed 8 back surgeries, 2 neck and a split tibial plateau fracture total knee.

Wished I'd done the best stuff in life first before I let my body get destroyed.

I have a sister in Nevada who is 10 years younger by 3 days. She and her husband have a Dental practice. They come in during the week, sometimes move appointments around. They ski every chance and travel all over the west coast and New Zealand just to go skiing and especially snowboarding.

They don't have kids, but they make up for it with my one nephew and a few more neices.

They've been together since 11 grade. They go to Hawaii where they have a Kona farm... guess where.

They've planned it all out in the beginning. Her words.. There is no point in working hard and retiring later in life if you're going to be old and unable to enjoy it.


Go enjoy the life you want, its your life.

a reply to: ketsuko

Seems to be a metric butt tonne of that going around.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
Great post!!!

Everything you've stated is very true. Never 'wait' to live your life! That is a mistake from the word 'Go'.

I've known too many people to count that have keeled over dead shortly after their retirements. Don't want that to be me!!

Coming from miles of ranch dressing telling us you eat hay and....

Restart.
You of all people now the value of bone breaking work out there on the range.


(In manly Budweiser commercial voice)
"Here's to you ranch life disk guy"

Great post.... NightSkyeB4Dawn

It's amazing when I look back at my planned personal trajectory from just 10 years ago.

10 years ago I was living with my family I had happily planned to live the rest of my life, we were living where I had happily planned to live the rest of my life, I was working at a location I had worked at for 23 plus years happily and planned to work there the rest of my life.

since then ...

Ive lived in 4 different places, alone or helping take care of my parents, previous work location is gone, companies worked for kaput. LOL and all that was before 2019 hell most of it was 2018.

COVID just adds to the uncertainty...

So for me, I'll never plan again... just gonna bust my azz for what dreams do remain, and make the best of any situation I may find myself in.

Your explanations of other people's sudden deaths following retirement makes me wonder if one of the cost controls of our govt is early retirement from retirement, using certain EM wave tech to cause cardiac malfunction. Perhaps the Social Security dept has a group of nameless, faceless assassins that are given a list of semi-recent retirees ready to milk the SS dollars, and are dispersed around the country to inflict said wave tech energy beam (ala Brietbart) and help the SS numbers a bit?
Hey, this still is a theory site, right?

I'm 63 and hoping to retire at 65...but I moved to a lake house 6 years ago, work from home and enjoy 6 weeks of vaca doing kayaking and fishing out my door.

originally posted by: PapagiorgioCZ
I have no plans for retirement. Couple of cans of beans maybe.
Once I'm too old to make a living I'm outta here.
Life is overrated anyway. Especially when you are old.

After being with my Dad and knowing how brutal his last 12-18 months were for him as he and his wife and children fought with every fiber of our collective being to save him and lastly comfort him, Ive told my children when the time comes DO NOT do anything to extend my life, DO NOT incur ridiculously high costs financially, physically, mentally or emotionally to take care of me or dispose of my remains.

a reply to: Bigburgh

There is no point in working hard and retiring later in life if you're going to be old and unable to enjoy it.

I agree.

For me, I was killing myself to obtain those things that I would likely die before I had a chance to enjoy. While in the process, I was likely to leave behind a fortune for those that did not earn it, and would likely waste it.

This realization is also what promoted me to make a Trust. I too have no children of my own, but I helped raise several of my nieces and nephew, of which I have near twenty. Most of which are spoiled brats that have had everything handed to them.

So, I chose to enjoy life, and make sure that only those that deserve the fruits of my labor and sacrifice, will benefit from my efforts.

I hope I can get the opportunity to be able to look down and see how it works out after I am gone. Joking. I hope that if there is anything beyond this plain, that it will be so fulfilling that I won't have to spend anymore time hanging around down here.

originally posted by: putnam6

originally posted by: PapagiorgioCZ
I have no plans for retirement. Couple of cans of beans maybe.
Once I'm too old to make a living I'm outta here.
Life is overrated anyway. Especially when you are old.

After being with my Dad and knowing how brutal his last 12-18 months were for him as he and his wife and children fought with every fiber of our collective being to save him and lastly comfort him, Ive told my children when the time comes DO NOT do anything to extend my life, DO NOT incur ridiculously high costs financially, physically, mentally or emotionally to take care of me or dispose of my remains.

You echo the same instructions I have given my family.

When it is my time. It is my time.

My Mother and I were talking about getting matching tattoos across our chests that say. "Do Not Press Here!"