It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything new here about Reverse loans and frankly sometimes it’s boring. I’d much rather share a story about one my my clients. Yeah, she was pretty difficult and demanding but she ended up being one of my favorites and I miss her calls. Here is her story….
I was meeting “Clara” who was 85 years old, for the first time at her home in the San Fernando Valley where she lived with her three cats Pumpkin, Rusty and Angel (the mean one) to discuss the possibilities of a Reverse loan to relieve her from her financial problems.
Like many seniors, she had been living off of her credit cards and now she owed an enormous amount of money, which of course she couldn’t pay back. She was in a very, very difficult situation and needed help.
It was August and a typically very hot day in the Valley with temperatures at about 108 degrees but it was a lot hotter at Clara’s. For whatever reason, seniors seem to keep their windows shut (Probably for security) and the blinds closed as they hunker down inside their homes.
And she was no exception, other than the fact that she didn’t have air conditioning.
I was about to be grilled!
Not only was it unbearably hot in her home but she proceed to interrogate me in such a manner that she would have qualified for a position with the KGB. Sweat was running down my spine and I felt a bit dizzy with the heat and her very feisty attitude that was focused on me like a laser beam.
She made it very clear to me that she was smart, had been a career woman in the fashion industry in New York and wasn’t stupid. Nobody was going to take advantage of “Clara”!
She was scared… She was scared of losing her home and her independence and she pointedly told me that she would never live in one of those “rooms”.
Fortunately for me, her neighbor was there to keep some semblance of control over the situation and at times had to remind Clara to take a breath and calm down.
And then I was offered some water that I desperately needed.
Ultimately the loan was done and she and I became good friends. She called me often to chat and one time kept me on the phone for 45 minutes to tell me all about her birthday trip to Hawaii and the two parties that followed later on.
We were going to meet again to discuss refinancing the original loan because now that she was older, she could receive more funds than what she had remaining in her original line of credit.
We agreed on a date to meet and I prepared some information for her to review. The morning of our appointment, Clara called me to say that she wasn’t feeling well and it would it be all right to cancel the appointment and set if for the following week?
Of course! I teased her a bit and said that she was probably only tired out from all of the partying that she had been doing but just rest.
I received a call later that afternoon from her neighbor to let me know that Clara had “passed”. She asked me about what time it was when I had talked with her and as it turned out, I was the last person to speak with Clara before she passed away.
I like to think that Clara lived her life exactly on her own terms and the Reverse loan made all the difference for her to do that!
At her memorial service and reception that followed, I found out that she had been feeding a colony of feral cats. She had such a loving heart for animals.
But that’s another story.
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