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Financial Journey
(featured column)
Life
Takes a Dramatic Change
by
Karen Kuebler
My life has been
forever changed. This is not going to be an easy article to write. But, in order
to carry on with BetterBudgeting.com, which I absolutely love, it is very
necessary for me to do. I haven’t written for a few months because my husband,
Bob, has been very ill. He had been suffering from Leukemia since 2000 and we
were blessed with 9.5 years of life beyond that, given the life expectancy for
the rare form that he had was approximately one year. He lost his battle on June
25th, 2009. We had 31 wonderful years together, and I know that is much more
than many people have the opportunity to experience. I feel very blessed to have
shared 31 years with the love of my life. More...
This article obviously will be a bit
different than my other articles. I know many of our readers have probably
experienced serious losses in their lives. I thought I would share some of the
steps I have taken to cope with this significant change in my life. The manner
in which I budget and handle our money will change drastically as well. So you
are going to experience my Financial Journey in a different phase of my life in
future articles.
In my case, it was fortunate that I handled
all of the finances. My husband worried if anything happened to me, he would be
lost as to how to take care of it all. This is an important point that I think
needs to be brought out in the open and not ignored. If you are in a situation
where one person is primarily responsible for taking care of all of the finances
and paperwork, I highly recommend that you make a change.
I know many women who did not take care of
the finances, and were totally lost when their husbands died. It goes both ways.
I would suggest that you make it a high priority to start sharing all financial
information, including how you track everything. I kept everything on the
computer, but it would have been difficult for my husband to figure out
everything I had done. I have tried to work with widows who don’t have a clue
how their money is being handled. I find it very distressing when I am trying to
help them and they can’t provide any information. Again, I strongly recommend
that you place this at the top of your list to educate each other and both
become familiar and comfortable handling your finances—including spending
plan, debt, savings, various accounts of deposit, etc.
There are many things I can share about how
I have handled various situations related to the death of a spouse. In future
articles, I will share all of the paperwork and changes that needed to be made.
In this article, I want to share steps I have taken to emotionally handle my
loss. If I’m not in control emotionally, then many other important matters
could easily fall by the wayside.
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my husband was declining, we began to make our plans related to how we
wanted to handle our funeral and/or memorial services. Believe me, this was
terribly difficult—but I handled it as a joint plan for both of us. I
won’t go into details of what we decided, but my husband was very happy
with the ideas I suggested, and I was able to make all of the arrangements
before his passing. That made that part of it much easier than trying to
make important decisions in the midst of painful grieving. I was also able
to comparative shop the various aspects of our final plans. This might sound
trivial, but the final cost was about 25% of what we paid for the funeral of
a very close relative when plans needed to be made suddenly. This is a
subject most of us want to avoid, but funeral homes offer “pre-need”
arrangements, and it can save a lot of emotional suffering as well as money
to know what is available ahead of time.
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had to learn to delegate. I had very close friends who helped me put
together a Memorial Service that was perfectly fitting to Bob. One friend
took care of the food and arranged a great potluck after the service.
Another friend helped me to put together the brochure for the Memorial
Service; while another friend helped me to put together the music Bob would
have wanted using her iPod and iTunes. She learned how to use the PA system
and recorded the entire memorial service for me, as well as handling the
music. By having friends help with all of these details, it helped me to put
together the details of the service.
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believe that God is always watching over us. The day Bob passed
away, I had a close friend call me in the morning and told me she couldn’t
stop thinking about me. She felt she needed to be with me that day. I was
resistant at first because I was not fit to see anybody. She reminded me
that I wasn’t supposed to entertain her and that she could easily take the
day off work. Thank goodness she was there with me. I can’t imagine how I
would have gone through it alone. This special friend was “my voice” at
the service. I wrote what I wanted to say about my life with Bob, along with
the songs that he and I had selected, and she was there for me to be my
voice.
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past the Memorial Service, and all of the family leaving, left a huge void.
I realized I had to start taking steps to work through my journey of
grieving, while moving forward and not staying stuck. Those are about the
only two choices you have – you either move forward, grow, and/or learn,
or you don’t. That means you stay stuck in pain, depression, suffering,
and never reach a state of peace again. My choice was to move forward. This
is another key choice that one needs to make during a difficult loss or
change in your life – this can mean the loss of a loved one, the loss of a
job, loss of a business, etc.
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joined a 12 week bereavement group that had been recommended to me by a
friend who lost her husband three months before Bob passed away. She knew it
would be a helpful group for me since we are very close and she knows the
kinds of things that help me grow. The facilitator has planned this in a
structured way so that he can help people move forward and not stay stuck
for years in a grieving state. I have learned at this point that my life
will never be the same, but I know I can create new memories and
experiences.
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took a driving trip to visit one of my children. This was partly because I
needed to be with my son, but also to move past the discomfort of driving a
400 mile trip alone. Bob was always the long distance driver. The trip was a
good chance for my son and me to share our own memorial for his Dad, as well
as give me a little more self-confidence that I really can do this alone.
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signed up for a class at the college for women who need to learn home
maintenance and repair. Bob was able to fix just about everything around our
home. That always helped financially. Not only do I not want to hire people
to fix things, but I would like to feel like I can live independently and
fix things myself. Bob left a gazillion tools, so I think I have whatever I
need – I just need to go through all of his tool chests and find the
tools. I took my first class yesterday and it was extremely helpful, while
providing me with the feeling that I can do what I thought was the
impossible.
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worked out in the yard which had been ignored for the last four years while
Bob’s health was declining and we were going for treatments so often. We
live on the forest and that creates a LOT of work as well as a fire hazard.
I filled about 40 large lawn bags myself. Then when my grandchildren came to
visit when Bob was declining quickly, they filled about 70 bags!!!! I still
have more work to do because it is a large lot, but what a difference in the
yard. The coping mechanism here was both the physical exercise as well as
seeing some very positive results! |
I truly hope that this article will not be a
downer, but rather give others hope that there are things we can do when we feel
we are totally bottomed out. I have many other ideas to share in future articles
that I learned needed to be done. And, I know I am going to learn a lot more as
I keep going.
I am using the mantra “put one foot in
front of the other” and just keep going. I don’t want to dwell on my loss,
but prefer to help others who might feel they just can’t take another step
forward. It has helped me to focus on the positives – my wonderful children
and grandchildren, my beautiful friends who helped me through this, and the 31
years of a magical life together with Bob. I hope that each of you will read
this and realize steps you can take in advance, as well as count your many
blessings.
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Copyright
© 2009 by Karen Kuebler. All rights reserved. Get a FREE Subscription to our monthly
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