Retirement Life

My husband always hoped to retire early from his job as a commercial airline pilot.  His original plan was to stop working at 57, in 2015, when the youngest of our five sons graduated from college.  God (and the airline he worked for) had other plans, however: when his company had to file for bankruptcy in 2005, it meant a painful pay cut for him and loss of his pension, and he realized that in all likelihood, he was now looking at working until mandatory retirement at age 65.

We have been among the luckiest, though, and we know it; his airline bounced back and he was steadily employed there for 32 years.  He was never furloughed (although there were a few times during his flying career where that possibility looked imminent and we were ready to sell our house and downsize if we had to--thankfully, we never did). But as I said, we were among the lucky ones.  It was not always a perfect job, but it was a very good one.  It afforded us the opportunity to give all of our sons a K-12 Catholic education, and for me to be a full-time SAHM and tend to the home fires while he traveled around the world, sacrificing much-cherished time at home with his beloved family in order to support us.

His early retirement in September of 2020 came about as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic.  That black cloud--with all the storms it stirred up in its wake--had an unexpected silver lining for us.

My favorite pilot and all-around favorite human, who had been flying almost exclusively to Tel Aviv in recent years, bid Rome trips for February of 2020 and was thrilled when he got them.  In his decades of international travel, Rome was far and away his favorite city in Europe.  We had taken a week-long vacation-of-a-lifetime to bella Roma in March of 2019; now, he hoped that I would be able to accompany him on at least one or two of his five working trips that month--maybe more, if I could tear myself away from the grandkids.  I ended up going on two of them.  They were four-day trips, meaning one day to fly over, two days of layover, and another day to fly back.  Four-day trips are much better than the more common three-day trips for bringing along your spouse, because on those you have to cram your sightseeing into one layover day. 

Both of those bonus Rome trips were positively magical and provided me with memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

I almost didn't go on that second Rome trip.  It seemed almost decadent to me, jetting off to Italy every other week. My guy had to be in that cockpit, it was his job; I didn't have to be in a business class seat, drinking champagne, eating four-course meals, and watching movies--that just made me spoiled rotten!  And I've always been a bit of a white-knuckle flyer, there's that, too: I had mostly gotten over my fear, from years of frequent airplane trips to see my kids and grandkids; but now that we've settled in VA and so many of them live nearby, I rarely fly anywhere anymore.  I overcame my hesitation, however, and now I am so grateful that I did.  If I could have looked ahead and seen what was about to happen, I might have even tried to tag along with him on one or two more of those Rome trips.

That last month of getting to travel to his favorite city--and even to take me with him a couple of times--was a generous parting gift after a long and satisfying career...because after that, my husband's flying days ended without any fanfare whatsoever.  You all know what happened in March of 2020: lockdowns started, and all overseas flights were cancelled.  And then in April, flights were cancelled again. In May, same thing... My husband was still an employed pilot, but all of his trips were cancelled month after month, and he was at home with me.  We used his time off to do a big DIY project and finished off our basement.  Then in September of 2020, my husband took an early retirement package offered by his airline.  Fewer flights meant that they needed fewer pilots, and he decided to leave so that some less senior pilot might be able to keep his job.  He was ready.  He didn't quite make his original plan of retiring at 57; but he got to retire earlier than he had expected, at 62.

  

So we are officially in an entirely new phase of life.   And we're loving it.  He is one happy retiree, and though he enjoyed what he did for a living, he doesn't look back and he doesn't miss working.  There are some gray areas in our lives, but retirement is not one of them.  

The gray is mostly on our heads, and I'm really starting to catch up with my silver fox.

My advice to anyone out there who is currently in the childrearing phase is this: of course you and your spouse should center your life around making a happy and secure home for the children God gives you; but remember to put your marriage first, not your children. It seems selfish, but it is just the opposite.  If you do, your kids will benefit from it. A strong marriage is the healthiest thing you can give them. They will see what a sacramental union looks like and will strive to recreate it as adults, and then their children will benefit as well. And when your children are all grown and gone and have families of their own, you will not look at your spouse and say, "What do we do now?"  If you haven't put your relationship on the back burner for the decades you were raising your offspring, you will be as happy and fulfilled as ever in your empty nest, enjoying the fruits of your hard work over the years with the only other person on earth who really knows what you've been through to get where you are now--and the only other person on earth who can possibly love your children as much as you do.

Anyway, we're both loving the retirement life.  We're loving the Papa-and-Grammy life.  The only hard thing about the season we're in now is the realization that, um...we aren't exactly spring chickens anymore!  

HOWEVER--

Last week I celebrated my 63rd birthday.  And my kids surprised me with the greatest gift ever: a 20-minute YouTube video that they'd put together.  It started with little videotaped messages from all the grandkids and then all of our boys and their wives, and it moved on to hundreds of photos from my extraordinarily, undeservedly full and blessed life--from when I was a little girl right up until our recent family get-together at the lake.  It made me laugh out loud at times and cry at others.  It made me feel like the luckiest wife/mother/grandmother--the luckiest person!--on earth.  And it made me feel very loved indeed.

So retirement, and growing older...hey, it's not so bad. In fact, it's really quite good. 

Beginning a Whole New Chapter

Life is like this amazing, never-before-read novel, with so many unexpected plot twists.  And just when you get immersed in one particular chapter of it (I'm a wife!  I'm pregnant! I'm a mommy! My firstborn can walk! Welcome to the world, son #5!  I can't believe I have a teenager!  My youngest is a college graduate!  My boys are all married men!  I'm a grandmother!  I have 16--count them, 16!--grandchildren!), that one ends and a whole new one begins.

Here's the latest plot twist in the story of my beautiful and extraordinarily blessed life: my husband has retired from his long-held job as a commercial airline pilot.  His official retirement date was September 1.

Due to the decrease in air travel caused by the pandemic, his airline was forced to make drastic changes.  The company went from being on the cusp of hiring thousands of new pilots just before the Covid-19 crisis hit to having to let thousands of their currently employed pilots go--forget about hiring any new ones.

In order to give some of the less senior pilots a chance to avoid furlough, an early retirement option was offered.  At 62, my husband is three years shy of mandatory retirement age, but he decided to take the early out.  It's like a dream come true for him, really, being able to retire ahead of schedule and spend more time with our ever-expanding family.  And with me, of course!  (This surprising turn of events, this unplanned early retirement, would have to be filed under the title "unexpected pluses of the Covid-19 pandemic.")

In typical Pearl family fashion, my husband's retirement party last weekend was a simple one held here at our house, with our four oldest boys, who live near us in VA, and their wives and children.

There were a lot of little people there to celebrate their Papa's retirement.  And there might have also been a tear-inducing video slide show set to music, put together by our second son and his wife, filled with so many beautiful images of a full and happy life that has been incredibly rich in blessings. [Sniff]

I am proud of the long and successful career my guy had with this major airline, where he was hired in early 1988 after serving eight years in the US Navy as a fighter pilot.  He spent his first few months as an engineer on the 727 before moving on to spend about a year-and-a-half as a copilot on the DC-9.  In late 1989, he began flying the 767, and he spent the bulk of his 32-year career on this aircraft.  He started flying the 767-ER internationally in 1996 and became a captain in 2006--an upgrade which he put off as long as possible during our boys' school years, because his seniority as a first officer allowed him more flexibility with his schedule (meaning more time for coaching his boys in football and lacrosse and more quality family time in general).  He thought he might finish out his career on the 767-ER, but in 2016 he transitioned and became a captain on the A330, which he continued flying internationally until his recent retirement.

With a husband flying internationally for 24 straight years, you might think that I saw much of the world right along with him.  Many pilots' wives tag along on their husbands' trips--especially the ones to popular European destinations--if there are seats available on the plane.  But I was not your typical airline pilot's wife.  Not by a long shot!

I didn't particularly care about traveling abroad (even though my husband got to visit pretty much every major city in Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East that a tourist would want to see), and I had a pretty intense fear of flying.  In fact, when he first got hired by the airline in 1988, I told him that I hoped he didn't think I was going to become a jet-setter, because I wanted to keep my feet securely planted on terra firma, and I wasn't going to leave my babies (we had four boys at the time) to go off galivanting around the globe.  He knew this about me from the get-go, and it never bothered him that I didn't want to travel.  In fact, after he'd been working for the airline for a while he admitted that it was a bit of a relief that I wasn't always saying "take me somewhere!" every time he got back home from a trip, tired and looking forward to a homecooked meal and sleeping in his own bed.  The last place he wanted to be when he wasn't working was in an airport, trying to get stand-by seats on a flight.  In fact, all the traveling he did over the years made him more of a homebody than ever.

We did take a few special family trips by plane: to Bermuda, to visit my husband's brother's family; to Disney World--our one and only trip to the Magic Kingdom; to South Bend, so that our three oldest could attend a lacrosse camp at Notre Dame.  My husband took one or two of his sons at a time out to Notre Dame for football weekends, while I held down the fort with the others.  And when our boys were out at Notre Dame during their college years, they were able to fly back and forth between New Hampshire and Indiana as non-revenue stand-bys, and that was a financial blessing indeed during their college years.  But generally, we didn't do a whole lot of travel by air, opting instead for road trips to visit relatives.  However, I used to tell my husband all the time that although I couldn't fly off with him AWAY from my babies, I felt sure that if they grew up and flew far away from our nest, I would be able to overcome my fears and fly TO them.  I pretty much promised him that it would be so.

Do you think I was able to keep that promise?  Did I conquer my fear of flying?

Yes, I did.  (Mostly!)

And remember what I said about chapters, about how they end and brand new ones begin?  In December of 2011, with our youngest son settled as a freshman undergrad at Notre Dame and our four older boys already college graduates and out on their own in the working world (the oldest married with twin daughters), I finally got on a plane that my husband was "driving" and accompanied him on a working trip to Nice (which included a little side trip to Monaco!). He'd been flying international trips for 15 years before I ever got around to tagging along on one; but the time was finally right.

You know what?  I'm going to end here and pick back up next time with a brief re-cap of our Nice trip (about which I wrote a number of posts a LONG time ago, in my earliest blogging days--here, here, and here, for instance..and maybe now there's no need for a re-cap?).  And then after that, perhaps I'll reminisce about some other wonderful trips that I finally got around to taking with my husband--proudly sitting in my passenger seat, thinking, "That's right, everyone!  My husband is flying this plane!"

That chapter of his life is finished now; after spending his entire adult working life--40 years!--with a cockpit for an office, it is unlikely that my favorite pilot will ever fly a plane again.  That's bittersweet...but mostly sweet.

I was almost going to use this post to announce my own retirement, from this blog...but perhaps I'll stick around for a little bit after all.  I might have another chapter or two to write before I'm done.  Au revoir, mes amis!