IRATE OVER YOUR IRA?
A Widow Bit – Jan. 18, 2009
By Mary Koch

            “My 401(k) is now a 201(k).”

            A friend, who is retired, was explaining why he and his wife had cancelled their winter get-away-to-warmth vacation plans. It made me think about how we used to worry about retirees who lived on “fixed” incomes. Those were the good old days.

            Whether retired or on the brink, my contemporaries and I are scratching our heads and saying, “But it wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

            Last week I received the official notice that I will be eligible for Medicare as of May. It was good and bad news. I am oh, so eager to cancel my costly individual medical health insurance. But I awoke this morning thinking, “Sixty-five. How did I get here so fast, and what am I going to do about it?”

            I’ve weathered financial storms before. I quaked as my stroke-paralyzed husband soaked up all his insurance benefits and then his assets. Somehow we survived as he went from millionaire to Medicaid recipient.

            Turning on the Sunday morning news, which was all inauguration all the time, I was reminded of just how rich I am – how rich my generation is.

            Mine is the pre-Baby Boom generation, born before World War II ended. No one has seen fit to give us a name, and we’ve gone through life looking over our shoulders at the massive wave of youngsters behind us.

            It was often to our benefit. Public school officials hustled to have an infrastructure ready for boomers; consequently many of us attended school in spanking new buildings. Our culture was geared up to adore its youth.  By virtue of being young, we were the toast of the nation.

            We’re still looking over our shoulders as our leaders, preparing for the aging Boomers, warn that Social Security and Medicare “entitlements” cannot be sustained.

            Even as my generation watches its retirement cushion lose much of its air, we remain rich with watershed experiences. The world has changed beyond what we could have imagined in our lifetimes.

            For me, the first turning point came in 1963, the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I remember standing, transfixed, in front of the tiny TV screen in my parents’ family room. The summer before, I’d been a church volunteer in the segregated South and was obliged to listen mutely (as I’d been sternly instructed) while white church members explained to this naïve Yankee why blacks and whites could never live and learn together. I personally needed the healing power of King’s speech as much as all of the nation.

            My generation was scarred by assassinations, race riots and Vietnam. We were inspired by the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Beatles. We’ve been transformed by space exploration and digital revolution.

            Most of all, though our 401(k)s may be diminished, we still have a rich legacy from parents and grandparents who survived even harder times. They’ve been there, done this, and so can we.