Winning the Endgame: A Guide to Aging Wisely and Dying Well

By Ray Brown and Julia Suits

America is a nation of death ostriches.

By denying mortality, death ostriches reduce the odds of living well as long as possible. This book will help you optimize the rest of your life.

You’ll see how to make wise decisions based on your staying power, how to evaluate the pros and cons of selling your hous

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ray Brown
• Release date: Sep 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9780998062815

Ray Brown

Ray Brown has been a licensed real estate broker since 1976. He coauthored two bestselling For Dummies books about real estate, wrote a syndicated real estate column, and hosted a call-in radio show about real estate for 16 years. Ray has spent 77 years gaining firsthand experience about aging. How well he dies is a tale yet to be told.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Age happens. If you’re lucky.

America is a nation of death ostriches. They’re desperately trying to hide from the dude in the black hoodie holding a razor-sharp scythe. Death ostriches hope if they stick their heads deeply enough into the sands of oblivion and stand really still, then maybe—just maybe—Death won’t find them.

Fat chance. By misdirecting their energy into denial of mortality, death ostriches reduce the odds of achieving a good death. That’s a dumb trade.

Death always wins at hide-and-seek. But, if you play the endgame well, Death may grant you a peaceful pass at home surrounded by your loved ones. In my book, that’s a win.

Winning the Endgame will help optimize the rest of your life. If your idea of happiness is living as well as possible for as long as possible and then slipping gently into the next great adventure, Winning the Endgame is the yellow brick road to your personal Oz.

Here’s what you’ll discover along the way:

Part I—Aging Wisely

Chapter 1: Staying Power. Is 70 the new 50? What are your odds of living to 100? (It could happen.) Here you’ll find out if you’ve meandered past middle age and delve into how much longer you’re likely to live. That neatly segues into staying power, your ability to outlast adversity.

Chapter 2: Financing Ideas for Homeowners. This chapter is full of fascinating financial considerations for homeowners who don’t plan to sell their dream house. It red flags a devastating mistake many homeowners make shortly before they retire. If you’re a renter, you have 100 percent guilt-free permission to skip to Chapter 4.

Chapter 3: Selling Your House. We consider the pros and cons of rightsizing—not downsizing—your house. You’ll see the relationship you have with your house for what it really is— unrequited love.

Chapter 4: Endgame Housing Alternatives. Shelter strategies for everyone. Why? Because you gotta live somewhere.

Chapter 5: Risk Management. As your staying power diminishes, you become increasingly vulnerable. You can’t eliminate risk, but you can manage it to enhance your odds of a happy ending. Use these strategies to defend against the Fearsome Four Risks.

Part II—Dying Well

Chapter 6: Advance Directive. Preparing to exit gracefully requires long-term planning skill and the courage to confront death without blinking. I’ll guide you through a living will and a durable health care power of attorney, the components of an Advance Directive (AD). You’ll see how to use your AD to begin tough-love conversations with family and friends who someday may have to make difficult decisions on your behalf.

Chapter 7: A Good Death. As Kenny Rogers said in The Gambler, Ya gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em. We delve into palliative care, hospice, and dying with dignity.

You won’t say TL; DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) about Winning the Endgame (henceforth "WTEG"). It’s concise. You’ll probably finish WTEG in a couple of hours. It isn’t filled with endless stacks of statistics that have the life span of fruit flies. Wherever possible, I connect statistical dots to form conclusions you can use to reimagine your life.

WTEG brings death out of the closet. Note that I just used the D word again. Go ahead. Say it with me—death, death, death, death. See. Nothing bad happens.

If you think WTEG is a downer, you’re dead wrong. I’m not saying you’ll laugh your head off (an awkward way to go), but you will be pleasantly surprised. WTEG is cheerful, not morbid—Harold and Maude, not Hamlet. I’m Paul Revere, not Dr. Kevorkian.

You’re equally off base to figure that you don’t need WTEG because you’re as healthy as the proverbial ox. Healthy is a word used to describe the slowest rate of dying. No matter how healthy you are now, you’re gonna die. Life is 100 percent fatal. If this comes as a shock, you’re too young to read WTEG. Put it away till you’re mature enough to calmly contemplate your endgame.

If, however, the thought of a tombstone with your name carved on it doesn’t freak you out, congrats. You passed my first test. There will be others.

The endgame begins on your 60th birthday and concludes when you toddle off to the big sleep. Whether your finale is grand or tragic depends upon how you position yourself now. Winning the endgame requires relentlessly ruthless realism. Throw away your rose-colored glasses. Embrace the world as it is, not as you wish it were.

You don’t need WTEG if you’re absolutely, unequivocally certain you’ll spend the rest of your life in perfect health with nary a natural disaster, drunk driver, fractured hip, or ruinous recession to mess up your idyllic existence. If you’re nimble enough to dodge the muck that life flings at ordinary mortals, know that I envy you.

However, if cascades of uncertainty drench you daily, welcome to my world. WTEG will help you make worst-case-scenario contingency plans. There’d be no need for contingency plans in a perfect world. As a realist, you know sewage happens whether you’re prepared or not. When it comes to dying, I admire Woody Allen. He’s not afraid of dying. Woody just doesn’t want to be there when it happens. My feelings exactly.

As a student of death, I avidly read the In Memory section of paid death notices in my newspaper. Every morning I scan the fresh harvest of prom pix, high school graduation head shots, faded wedding photos, and blurry WWII snapshots. Then I read the glowing tributes to the newly departed. Decades of study have taught me two things:

The second worst death notice starts, After a courageous [funeral director lingo for suffered stoically] battle with [fill in the blank with a nasty way to kick the bucket, such as ALS, lung cancer, or getting gnawed to death by beavers] . . .

The worst death notice begins, After a long, courageous battle with . . .

Have you noticed that lately more and more people don’t seem to get your references? I’m keenly aware of this problem. For example, in the brief time we’ve known each other, I’ve referred to Paul Revere, Dr. Kevorkian, Harold and Maude, Hamlet, the yellow brick road, Oz, Woody Allen, prom photos, and World War II. I hope you got my drift.

Inadvertent obscurity first bludgeoned me in 2006 when I was managing a residential real estate company. Bill, our newest agent, came into my office one evening utterly dejected. He overheard a couple of experienced agents say he wouldn’t make it selling homes because he was too young