Front Porch: Best-laid retirement plans sometimes turn out even better

As we think of how it might all end for us, we seniors could envision standing by the shore at age 101, hand-in-hand with our life’s partner and gazing at a beautiful sunset, when a bolt of lightning takes us out at the same moment. A bit dramatic, not to mention unrealistic, yes, but the idea would be to depart together after a full life.

But in reality, that’s not how it happens. One of us – for those of us fortunate enough to have had an “us” – will be on our own, in good health or not, with sufficient funds or not. We need a plan. And a Plan B and sometimes a Plan C, too.

I have just had the experience of seeing just such a Plan B morph into a lovely Plan C – a process that evolved because Plan C was actually lurking within Plan B. I don’t think those involved necessarily anticipated it working out as it has, but sometimes life’s surprises are happy ones.

My friend Sandy moved away from this area in 2015. Her husband had died a few years before, and before deciding on whether she would stay or relocate, she had some business, employment and just plain life things to work out. Having come from modest means and always mindful of finances, she had long ago begun planning for the financial aspects of retirement. Just where she’d live was the major variable.

Once everything wrapped up locally, she put Plan B in motion and did a cross-country tour visiting family and friends and, frankly, scouting locations where she had some roots and felt comfortable. Retirement location was an evolving plan on wheels there for a bit.

In the meantime, the renter had moved out of the small townhouse she bought as an investment in the San Francisco Bay area in 2008, right when the housing market imploded and prices were favorable. It is located in a community adjacent to the one where she lived as a teenager and where two of her closest friends still reside.

As prices and rents have risen considerably in the last decade, she realized it needed upgrades in order to get those top rents. So she thought she’d move in temporarily and work on the renovation. And that’s what she’s done, making changes slowly but steadily, as budget allows,

But the funniest thing has happened. She’s found a home, a community. It’s not like that possibility hadn’t occurred to her, but it didn’t appear to be a smart move financially.

“I did think it could happen,” she said, “But I wasn’t counting on it. I appreciate the income from the townhouse, and I could live more cheaply elsewhere. But sometimes home just presents itself.”

Yes, the townhouse is lovely. I know because I visited last month. We talked and talked for days (my husband still wonders how that’s possible), did a few touristy things – trip to the wine country and Point Richmond (there’s a Rosie the Riveter Museum there, most cool) and a few meals out. But mostly, we just caught up on our lives since she left here. Good friends need to do that. And, a bonus, I got to see her life now, and I feel good being able to picture in my mind exactly where she is when we talk on the phone.

What has made this California setting a home for her is, of course, familiarity with the area, but most importantly, her lifetime friends Libby and Diane. I’ve met them before when they visited her up here, so I knew them a little – but I could now see first-hand now how the three of them have formed a close and mutually helping community for themselves.

Libby downsized from her home of 32 years into a condominium. She had taken a fall down some stairs, requiring back surgery, so Sandy did all the heavy sorting and lifting to make the move possible. When Sandy’s car was in the shop the day I arrived, it was Libby who drove Sandy to the Oakland Airport to pick me up.

Diane lives in a three-bedroom townhouse a block from Sandy. Her daughter and teenage son have moved in – because that’s what you do when family needs require it. The two friends often have coffee and a chat supporting one another.

Three of them or sometimes just two of them go places, celebrate birthdays, have meals in one another’s homes – and Diane gives Sandy a good-morning call every day, just to check in and be sure all is well. Yes, they have other friends and do things on their own or with their own children or grandchildren when they come to town. But – with their long and shared history of growing up together as well as all the joys and tribulations since – they are the Three Musketeers, sisters from another mother.

They are their own retirement community. It could be located anywhere, because it’s the people not so much the place. They had always hoped they would maintain closeness as they got older, and while they hadn’t specifically planned for it, they allowed for it. And it happened.

We should all be so fortunate to have such a community of friends – in retirement or ever.