Category Archives: Financial Struggles

Record – keeping Mania

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After a husband dies, his wife is automatically enrolled in Record-keeping 101. The struggles we‘ve heard about for new widows are legendary, stories of husbands never having told their wives about their income or bank accounts, and wives having to rely on guesswork to unravel the mysteries.

Although Nate was a lawyer and knew the importance of keeping records, he wasn’t good at gathering them to a central location. At work he stacked manila folders atop file cabinets, credenzas, chairs, on the floor around his desk and in the foot well. Although he could put his finger on a specific sheet of paper at a moment’s notice, no one else could find a thing. And since he died, that’s been the dilemma facing all of us.

When someone we love is terminally ill, we push “terminal” to the back of our minds and focus on “today”. Asking a sick person to give us information we’ll need after they’ve died is a touchy task. How do you sit with a clipboard voicing one question after another without tipping your hand that you’re thinking past his demise?

I have a dear friend who is 84 years old, whose husband of 60 years died last August. While visiting, I found her in the middle of transferring accounts from his name to hers. The task had become a mountain to climb, despite her having excellent business savvy and flawless records. “I work on it a little at a time,” she told me, “but then have to put it away. It’s exhausting.”

As we talked, I noticed multiple piles of manila folders on the floor around her favorite chair. She knew what was in each one, just as Nate knew. The only difference was her piles were two inches tall, and Nate’s were two feet.

At that time in late August, Nate and I knew nothing of his cancer. My heart went out to this friend having to struggle so long and hard with the paperwork of widowhood. At the end of our conversation, she showed me a stapled set of three papers entitled “Estate Administration Information Checklist.” It was all about deeds, trusts, contracts, wills, insurance policies, stocks, bank accounts, loans, titles, pensions, taxes and other documents. There were 69 items on the checklist.

It occurred to me that if anything happened to Nate, I wasn’t equipped to handle such a list. My friend then gave it to me. “You can have it,” she said. “It’s an extra copy.”

I took it with me and put it in a dresser drawer, planning to study it later. But in three weeks I’d been told my husband, too, was going to die. I knew I needed to pull out the list and ask Nate the hard questions, so I tucked it into my journal and saw its edge protruding every day, pressuring me to talk to him. My instinct, however, told me to enjoy each moment rather than spoil our time together with cold-hearted quizzing. After the first three of our six weeks had gone by, Nate wouldn’t have been able to answer the questions anyway.

Today I slipped into discouragement trying to make a chart of Nate’s doctors, their addresses, phone numbers, the dates of his appointments and what occurred there, over three years of time. All of a sudden, at a low moment, Nate sent me a message. Actually, he sent two.

Cupid's heart Post-its 2

Paging through old calendars looking for scheduling clues, I found one of his Post-it notes clinging to the month of May. He’d drawn a heart with a Cupid’s arrow on green paper. I’d seen his Post-it hearts before and recognized this as his “I love you” to me. Five calendar pages later, there was a second one, this time on a yellow Post-it. They were just the boost I needed to continue my hunt for information, and by the end of the day, Nate’s doctor list was complete.

“The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.” (Isaiah 58:11)

Skewed Priorities

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The little cottage where Nate and I moved last June is a home we’ve owned for nine years. Although it’s always been winterized, we used it mostly in the summer because of the large, relatively empty beach nearby. When finances became tight, we put our Chicago house on the market. But when it didn’t sell, we put the summer house up for sale as well, continuing to hope one or maybe even both would sell.

After four years, the house in Chicago finally sold, and we found ourselves moving to Michigan to live full time. We considered it an adventure for two sixty-somethings and figured we could return to the Chicago area if we missed it too much.

Nate continued to work in Chicago’s Loop, commuting around the bottom of Lake Michigan via the South Shore train line. He found the long ride pleasant and full of interesting characters. I admired the ease with which he made this major change after living in the Chicago area for 37 years. But in his own words, coming home each evening to our humble Michigan cottage was “coming home to paradise.”

Nate and I often talked about improving the Michigan house. It was needy in many categories, and we had some good ideas, but we were so busy with his work and my unpacking that not much was accomplished toward that end over the summer. “Let’s wait til fall,” I said. “I’ll get the kids to rip out the musty old living room carpeting we’ve hated for years, and I’ll swing a paint brush in several rooms.”

But when fall came, cancer came too. Thoughts of renovating went out the window, because once Nate became sick, none of that was important. Besides, we had all we could handle just keeping up with doctor appointments, radiation treatments, pharmacy visits and medicine doses.

Today at lunch time, several of the boys asked me what they could do to help. Before I could answer, 15 month old Skylar walked into the room with a flaming red rash on one cheek. She’d been frolicking with Jack the dog on the living room carpet but hadn’t cried out, so no one could figure out how her cheek had become injured.

carpet roll

Then Hans said, “That looks just like the rash Nicholas had a few days ago.”

After further investigating, we all agreed the carpeting was to blame. Jack had had a major bout with fleas recently, and we’d responded with a vet appointment and his recommended chemicals. Maybe it was just the fact that our carpeting was nearly 40 years old, but within the hour, the boys were cutting it into chunks and dragging it out of the house.

I’d been asking them to rip up the rumpled, stained carpet for several years, but there was always a reason why “it wasn’t a good day” to do it. Today it got done on the dime because of two rashy baby cheeks.

Life is all about setting priorities. We line them up and then obey the list. When Nate and I became aware of his cancer, existing priorities were tossed aside as new ones came into their places. Home improvements fell to the bottom of the list while Nate’s care rose to the top. Occasional family visits were no longer good enough. Instead, the family came together around the clock. Focused time as a married couple had been sprinkled here and there throughout our days but then switched to becoming constant. There’s nothing like a health crisis to rearrange skewed priorities.

Interestingly, by the hour of Nate’s death at 7:35 pm on November 3rd, every item on the revised to-do list had been checked off. Each task had been completed.

Why does it take a crisis to force the right priorities? All of us know what they are, even before a crisis hits. We just don’t line them up until then.

“We spend our years as a tale that is told. [Lord], teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” (Psalm 90:9b & 12)

Looking for God

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Governments don’t have soul, and none of the congressmen who voted “yes” to the tax changes back in 1986, knew our family or intended to hurt us. With their “yeas” and “nays” they didn’t think about Nate’s business imploding as a result of the law change and didn’t see the struggle we’d have to keep milk in our refrigerator.

One of Nate’s favorite things to say during these difficult months, years, and eventually two decades was, “We soldier onward.” I loved that. He gave us the determination to keep marching forward when it would have been easier to quit fighting against overwhelming odds.

During those dark days I often stood in the check-out line at the grocery with a cranky baby on my hip and a near-empty purse over my shoulder. It’s difficult to decide what items to take off the belt to bring a total under $12. Milk, meat and veggies are out of reach when money is scarce, especially when trying to feed a crowd.

I became a pro at saving pennies. I told the kids to put their clothes back into the drawers after wearing them once, to get a second wearing (at least) before washing. That way we saved on expensive detergents. I cared for leftovers by the pea and kernel of corn, and I don’t mean from the serving bowls. I mean from the plates. Bits that were left on each plate were gathered to make one new serving for someone at the next meal. I learned to make soup, most recipes without meat, and we slurped it down, night after night.

During these stress filled days, I began looking for God like never before. I had to know if he saw our situation and how he might offer to help us.

I recognized him first on a bitter cold, icy morning when I stepped out the front door to drive the school carpool. There, covered in sparkling frost, were two large paper grocery bags full of food: potatoes, oranges, cereal, butter, bread, canned vegetables, cookies, peanut butter, soup and rice. Wedged into the bottom was a frozen ham.

The kids, leaning forward under the burden of school back packs, stumbled over each other to look into the bags. “Who? When? Why?” We never got the answers. But we all recognized God that day, and when he came, he taught us something important.

Although he lets us struggle in a million different ways, he’s always watching out for us. Pastor Erwin Lutzer says, “God lets us go into the fire, but he always keeps his hand on the thermostat.” I think he pays closer attention during painful times than when things are going well.

On that discouraging winter day back in the late eighties, God loved us so much that he leaned down from heaven and whispered into someone’s ear: “Drop two bags of groceries on Nyman’s front porch today.” For their obedience, I will always be grateful.