I am in my eightieth year. My grandfather, to whom I have been compared my entire life, passed away half way through his eighty-first year. For many years now it has been my life's goal to outlive the s.o.b. On the other hand, I also have an incentive to live to at least eighty-two, since that is the age at which my gamble with an annuity pays off. Let me explain.
My late wife Carol and I had a three-pronged approach to retirement income. First, of course, there was social security and Medicare, and we made sure we were minimally qualified with at least 40 quarters of covered substantial income. It turns out the government screwed us with something called the Windfall Reduction Act, which turned Carol's guaranteed social security benefit into a mere pittance. Congress eventually saw the error of its ways and repealed it a few years ago, but not before it had stolen many thousands of dollars from what we had expected to receive. Carol received almost $10,000 as a refund of one year's benefit she had lost, but by then she had been retired for fifteen years and had lost that amount every year. Our second prong was what triggered her social security benefit being labeled a "windfall", two Illinois pensions. As professors at Illinois universities we were vested in the State University Retirement System, and were entitled at retirement to a pension for life based upon years of service and average of highest four years of salary. There was also a very good benefit for a surviving spouse. Carol had 29 years of service and I had 9, so her pension was substantial while mine was minimal. There were two reasons my pension was so small. First, I only spent 9 of my 20 years as a university professor at an Illinois institution; and second, I left teaching to become an attorney after 20 years. Those other 11 years were covered by an annuity, to which both I and my university contributed annually. The annuity was offered by TIAA and CREF. TIAA was a fixed-rate savings plan, much like a CD, while CREF was a way to invest in a variety of other entities, including the stock market. I had 11 years of participation while Carol had 3, and after that we just let our contributions ride. The stock market went up nicely and I pulled out of the stock fund just before the crash of 2008, so that by the time we retired in 2009 we had about a million bucks. We rolled it all into a two-life annuity with a 20-year guarantee. That is, we were guaranteed certain income every month as long as either of us lived, and if we both died before 20 years then someone we named would be entitled to the remaining payments. My gamble with the annuity, then, was this. If I live to age 82, I will have got back every penny of what I put it plus accumulated interest, and any additional payments after that birthday would be pure profit. If I die before age 82, the company wins even with paying my heir the remainder. So I damn sure want to live past 82.
So what are the odds of me making it another 2 1/2 years? As I figure it, something south of 40%. I always assumed Carol would outlive me. She was a woman, which gave her an advantage. Her general health was better than mine. She took far better care of herself than I did. She exercised and I did not. See what I mean? But Parkinson's stepped in and changed all that. We made it to our 55th anniversary but she didn't stick around for our 56th. I spent the last year and a half in heavy-duty caretaker mode, and have yet to forgive her for leaving me alone. I know how stupid that must sound, but it's how I feel. I planned on having her around until I kicked off, and now I've had to figure out how to survive by myself. It ain't easy, I can tell you.
I don't have anything as earth-shaking as Parkinson's, but I have more than my share of ailments, There's Type 2 diabetes, which affects my diet and forces me to take pills and injections. At least I now have a continuous glucose monitor stuck in my arm so I don't have to stick my fingers every day. Instead I stick my belly every day with long-lasting inulin. Next stop will be short-term insulin, with every meal, and one of my goals is to postpone this as long as possible. It is inevitable, though; it's only a question of when.
Then there is Stage Three Kidney Failure, which isn't as bad as it sounds but is likely to progress to me needing dialysis one of these days. Not much can be done about it, and kidney transplants are not common among those of us in our ninth decade. So we watch and wait and take a few more pills. Related to this are my recurrent kidney stones. So far I've needed two surgeries to remove an errant stone lodged in a ureter, and there have been a couple of others that passed after a couple of days of excruciating pain. And I thought shingles was bad. There's a pill for that, but mostly I need to drink more water. Hard to break the habits of a lifetime. There is also the enlarged prostate, for which I take yet another pill, but no sign of prostate or any other cancer.
My daily life is probably most affected by vertigo. I get dizzy and often lose my balance, leading to falls, some serious. The worst so far was in the garden at the old house, where I smashed my head and according to the ER nurse came close to losing an eye. The day after I moved into the new house (1891 vintage) I fell down the stairs while carrying up a box of books (yes, I have too many) and broke two ribs. Thank goodness my brother was staying with me that week and was able to take care of things. Other falls have not been so dramatic, but I literally live in fear of breaking a hip or of falling and not being able to get up. These are the things Carol is supposed to be here for (or, for which Carol is supposed to be here, for the grammarians in the crowd). When I go for walks I take my walking stick, but I've probably reached the point where I need a cane even around the house. I dislike the idea, though; canes are for old people.
I have less control over my emotions these days. I find myself crying without knowing why. Watching TV is a bit of a chore sometimes; I've always been rather empathic, and the tears come nowadays for fictional events both happy and sad. Related to this is the lack of physical affection. I don't mean just sex; Carol had been mostly unable for a number of years. One of my oldest friends believes that lack of sex in a marriage inevitably means the marriage exists in name only, but I know better although I would never contradict her openly. But I miss holding hands, the odd affectionate kiss, the lingering hug. I don't expect ever to have those things again, and I deeply miss them.
My grandfather passed at 80, my grandmother at 79. My mother succumbed to lung cancer at 75 in 2001, ironic since she had quit smoking 30 years earlier. She told me the doctors told her that by the time she was diagnosed it had progressed so far that no surgery, no radiation, no chemo could help. These days I suspect there are a lot more treatments available, even tuned to particular DNA strands, but early detection is probably more important. My father passed at 86, alone by choice as he had divorced his third wife due to some disagreement over real estate. At the end he was blind and in a nursing home. We were never close, and were estranged for many years. He had two adopted children but was even less connected to them than he was to me. I flew to Texas to take care of his funeral and estate, and discovered he had left everything (such as it was) to me. I tracked down the adopted kids and split things with them, but I have still never met them.
I have written a letter to my executor, in which I've tried to give her all the information she'll need to take care of my estate. It's on the computer, which means I can modify it as things change or I think of new things. I especially want my brother and Carol's sister to have better lives after I'm gone. I've been generous while I've been here, too, but the plan is to leave each of them enough for a secure retirement, which they might not have without me. I think this is an equitable solution, since about half of what I'll leave comes from Carol and the other half I generated myself.
So all things point to a downward spiral; the only question is how steep. My best guess is pretty steep; it'll be touch and go to reach 82. Based on how hard it is to walk up the stairs at night due to general weakness, how often I fall, and how unlikely it is that I'll be living with somebody else, I think I'd bet against it.
In the best case I die in bed, as Carol did, just never waking up in the morning. Whether at home, in hospice, in a nursing home or assisted living, so long as I'm not a drain on anybody's resources. I have the income to pay for a nursing home or assisted living out of pocket, so the estate will remain intact. That might even be the best way to go, since there would be all the care that would be needed and access to hospice. And guaranteed not alone.
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