How I Got Here

            I couldn’t afford to retire.  But I did anyway.

            Fiscal common sense has never been my strong suit.  If it was, I would never have gone to an expensive private college and spent a semester in Germany.  Both were beyond my budget.  Both turned out to be incredibly enriching experiences that got paid for after all.

            If I’d had some fiscal sense, I would have gone into some kind of lucrative business career instead of education.  But then I would have missed the joys and agonies peculiar to community college teaching.

            I spent my teacher’s life barely getting by:  paying the bills, buying the food, raising my children.  The year the faculty received a five percent raise, I decided I should learn about IRAs now that I was going to have little cushion each month.  That was when our health insurance premiums went up and our prescription drug coverage went down.  Good-bye cushion, good-bye IRA dreams.  At an in-service one fall, there was a designated time for staff and faculty to talk about their collecting hobbies.  I told the group that I had never been a collector—in fact, I hadn’t even managed to collect child support.

            If I had possessed fiscal sense, I would not have quit my job the spring before the economy crashed (or recessed, depending on your point of view).  I wouldn’t have moved from Kansas to Washington, my only savings the insurance settlement for the car my husband had totaled.  (Thank goodness, no one was hurt.) 

            But look at all I would have missed and look at how God has provided for me.  (I try to be responsible, I really do, and I’m not advocating fiscal irresponsibility.)

            My money ran out early in 2009.  My brother started paying my bills.  From the beginning it was clear that full-time work would be impossible due to my responsibilities at home with Mom.  I kept applying for part-time library positions and had some great interviews but never landed a job.  But lack of money has never kept me from my children, so I flew out to Tulsa on May 22, the day my grandson Benjamin was born, and stayed for five weeks to help out.  Then I visited my son, who had, interestingly enough, moved from Taylor, Indiana to Colorado Springs on May 22.  I got back to Whidbey Island on July 2.  On July 29, I found myself on a plane again, this time headed to North Carolina where my sister Anne was dying from cancer.  Once I got there, I couldn’t make myself leave, so I stayed.  (John continued to pay my bills and care for Mom in my absence.)  Anne died October 3.  On October 7, with the blessings of both my brothers, I was flying to Tulsa, hoping that spending time with my five-month-old grandson would be a comfort to my grieving heart.  It was.  I finally came back to the island a couple weeks later.

            And then my financial woes disappeared, though I would have much preferred my sister’s life to her money.  As her sole beneficiary, I suddenly had the means to pay off all my debts and to give and to save.  I also inherited her pension plan and, then, once I turned 55, my teacher’s state pension kicked in as well. 

Every day I’m astounded by my blessings.  I continue helping my mother and brother.  I pay my own way now.  I can afford flute lessons.  I have the means to visit that darling grandson of mine on a regular basis.  I have the time to devote to church ministries, writing, and music.            

In short, God is how I got here.  I’m quite sure that Anne approves.