Good Bye Grandma and Grandpa!
I wish we were leaving on a vacation to a nice warm spot for the winter to ease the Mr. Arthur Itus in our bones. Maybe a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands would be nice.
We planned on those things for our retirement, we even took a cruise or two and traveled in our RV across the USA for 3 months. It was glorious, all the fun of new places, new people and learning about this wonderful country. Visiting Landmarks we had never seen but heard about all our lives. We planned on living on our Retirement Income and managing till Our Lord called us home. We visited Family and friends on our journey and then headed back home. Truly the Golden Years we had heard about were even better than we had anticipated. My husband was a firefighter who went out on a disability after 26 years on the job. I finally had to put in for my SSDI after my MS took over my life, with Pain more than I could sometimes handle. We managed to do things pretty well. Unfortunately that all came to an end. Health problems in sued and then came the financial problems. We thought we were ready but quickly dipped into our savings to get by. Medical bills piled up, Prescription’s piled up and then our dreams started to crash rapidly. We didn’t have enough Health insurance to compensate for all the problems that were coming. Broken Legs, Surgeries, Cancer, Heart surgeries, pacemaker, valves, bypass, you name it. Near death experiences seem to be our new passion. We prayed to survive and make it through every time a new event occurred. We wanted to enjoy our Grandkids and watch them grow. Their smiles and giggles made our hearts smile and the pain disappear.
We never planned on being here, in this predicament, ever. We used our home and its growing equity to make our life easier. You see, when your old and disabled you now have to pay folks to do the things you always did before and took for granted. Like pruning a tree, fixing a faucet, repairing a fence and so on. Those little jobs add up and can shrink your wallet quickly. We took out loans to get by and planned on selling our current home in this big California Housing market and find a smaller cheaper home for our retirement.
It was going along as planned, we felt secure in our investment, our home. We spent some evenings dreaming about moving and looking at homes for sell. We had a great plan for our retirement years to be Golden once again. Health wise we had pretty much had everything fixed, replaced or removed and planned on living longer.
Our kids were all raised and doing just fine in their lives, that made us very happy too.
This year we were going to sell and get on our way to being debt free again. Pay off the medical and Charge Cards that had bailed us out in hard times and settle down in a nice little cottage. Be full time Grandparents and travelers.
Not a bizarre or non-sensible plan, many others have done or planned on doing the same as us.
Well, then came the Crunch, I just can’t call it a Crash, I am in denial. Our world has fallen apart. We have a phone that never stops ringing and guilt that eats at us daily. We have gone through our entire savings, our income has dropped by 1500.00 a month and we cannot sell our home or pay our bills. We are in Hell.
My husband cannot work because of his illness’ and I have struggled this last year from selling AVON to feeding Llamas to make extra income. I sold my car, most of my jewelry and we have been trying for a year to sell our RV. No one is buying and everyone is afraid of what the future may hold.
We entertain thoughts of running off to Mexico like criminals, sell things we never planned on selling, and borrowing from family. We don’t want to go their, we have very little pride left now but to ask our kids or siblings for help when we know they are not really able is out of the question.
What is it they say about “Man’s Best Laid Plans?
We failed, our economy has failed us and we are now a 59 yr. old woman and 71 yr. old man, both disabled, living in fear of not having a home soon or food. We are now worried about having to give our pets away. That is like giving away your children to us, not something we would consider. We have spent the last year trying to prevent all this failure from happening but it is now upon us and we are so scared. We qualify for little of anything which makes us wonder how the others are doing.
Maybe its time for us to give up?
Love, Grandma and Grandpa