You may outlive your wife; most men don’t, but 20% do. This makes them widowers. No one writes about them because (80%) of married women outlive their husbands (do unmarried women outlive unmarried men or widowers?). Since 80% is greater than 20%, the women get the attention because they live about 14 years longer than their husbands (or all men generally, according to the U.S. Census Bureau). If you married a younger woman, you might hope she marries a richer man after you die. If she does not remarry, you better plan for her future.

We all have rules for living. We get them from our parents and the neighborhood where we live. If Dad was good to Mom, most likely you will do the same. Your Mom (and mine) did not know much about financial planning and investments. Today, couples are more open, but not more prepared. Husbands have an inherent responsibility to care for their wives today and evey tomorrow.

The ethic of taking care of your wife comes from your worldview and personal rules of behavior. Rules of behavior or motivation come from your beliefs; what you consider important. God, family, and work often set the priorites. No matter how you arrange the list, family first is more than a motto.

The Bible outlines the impact of family love and affection:
• Widows without family “are really in need”, and deserve support from their church community
• Widows with family (children and grandchildren) should receive care from their family
• Children (and grandchildren) caring for their Mom “put their religion into practice”
• Children (and grandchildren) ignoring their Mom’s needs have “…denied the faith” and they are “…worse than an unbeliever.” (See I Timothy 5:8)

What makes this information relevant? Not every husband nor every household can accumulate and sustain the wealth needed to provide for a mother. A wife with children is a mother (what a friend of mine calls “a keen observation of the obvious”). Many husbands and Dads work to support their household; sometimes their real estate, retirement plans, and personal savings cannot endure the depreciating affects of inflation and time. Sometimes circumstances thwart every dream and commitment. “xxit happens”

Although I don’t have a statistic, my guess is that many women sit alone in cold flats with empty thoughts, dry oil tanks, and little food. Houses of faith should search their community to provide help when needed. Houses of faith should provide help for widows without children or assets.

A recent study by Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research suggests husbands and families overlook the needs of widowhood. According to the research, almost three-in-10 single women live in poverty or on the edge of poverty. Living “without a husband” (or her husband) worsens a women’s living conditions.

About 800,000 women become widows yearly. The research report informs us that there are 11.3 million widows in the United States (2.6 million widowers). Nearly 2.5 million live impoverished lives.

Children could blame their Dad for poor planning. Dad could live his last years embarassed by a seeming lifetime of financial failure. The reasons for anyone’s poverty are irrelevant. No one’s home must be shared with rodents, nor filled with chilly air. No one should sup alone, nor should they scour barren cabinets for a meal.

No woman, with or without children, should live in poverty. If she does not have children, then her neighbors should “love her as they do themselves.”

The Saturday/Sunday edition dated September 22, 23, 2007 includes the front page article, “The 10 most important questions you and your spouse should ask each other about retirement-and probably haven’t….”

Glenn Ruffennach lists questions derived from a survey of future retirees. The content of the article is worth reading. If you miss the article, here are the questions.

1. “Do we really want to retire, and if so, when?”

2. “What is our vision of retirement-and do we share the same vision?”

3. “Where do we want to retire?”

4. “What’s our strategy for building and preserving a nest egg.”

5. “What assets do we have for retirement-and are they invested in the most beneficial ways to achieve our goals?”

6. “How much money will we need to support our lifestyle in retirement?”

7. Do we have an estate plan-and where is it?”

8. “What will our legacy be?”

9. “What kind of relationships-personal and financial-do we want to have with our children and parents in later life?”

10. “How will each of us approach, and manage, getting older?”

Take time to talk, to plan, to live, to do, to laugh, and to grow old together.

Cars need tires. My 1950 Chevrolet convertible with Dynaflow needed tires in 1965. Recaps worked; they met my high school budget, and worked. Makes me wonder if recapping is better than retiring.

Television advertisements offer services and products for retirement. You can retire to the beach or the bedroom. Or, you can start a recap of your life.

My recapped tires needed new tread; recapping does that. Recapping your life stages makes more sense than retiring.

Ashley Kahn, wrote “The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records”. You can hear him on National Public Radio (NPR).

In the Wall Street Journal article (January 10, 2007), “A Cultural Conversation with Jerry Wexler”, Kahn celebrates Mr. Wexler’s 90th birthday (January 10th). Mr.Wexler receives accolades for his “role as producer and former president of Atlantic Records”.

Anyone ninety years old suffers the loss of friends and family. You can read all about his career in the article. What strikes me is his memory and preservation of his past, but no interest in what happens in the music industry today. “In what way could it possibly engage me? I’m not involved in it.” He is not retired; he is recapped.

Kahn visited Mr. Wexler’s home; he observed Jerry Wexler moving “…briskly from room to room, and from task to task.” Life is not over. Wexler exhibits drive and purpose. “Everybody seems to be coming to my door; BBC, NPR.”

Here is the lesson for all of us, “…there aren’t too many people at the age of 90 that are coherent or even alive.” Life provides perpetual opportunity to act, to do, to live. The past is behind; we are presented with “now” not to retire, but maybe just to recap for new trips forward.

Whether rich or less-rich, leave the word “retirement” in the dictionary.

Scott Burns, columnist for the dallas/”>Dallas Morning News writes about the “retirement algorithm” in his Boston Globe article, “Couples may need less than they think to retire”. I never liked math, but it makes such sense, as my math teachers have reminded me.

Burns states that “… the cost of a household rises as the square root of the number of members.” You can Google square root calculations for your household. We have five members of our household. Using the retirement algorithm, the cost for one person is “1″. You might think the cost of two would be “2″. Nope; it is the square root of 2, and that is 1.41 ( or 1.41421356 to be exact). For our family of five the cost for five is 2.2. We have one relative living with us; best not tell the others that we could add a few more without much more expense.

The point of Burn’s article is that you can live less expensively during retirement. You will have to pay off the mortgage, and you will have to keep adding to your 401(k)during your work years.

When I first became a stock broker, a major Wall Street firm trained me in New York City. At the end of classes, I waited in the lobby for my ride. As executives fled the building, a group of older workers walked in the lobby. They headed for the elevators. I asked someone, “Where are they going?” These folks emptied the baskets and sorted mail. They had retired from their life’s work, but needed the money. For some, the retirement algorithm does not matter.

Read some of my other articles found as Ethos Musings