Is Retiring to Florida Selfish?

I didn’t stay. On the day of my college graduation, I packed up my car and drove straight through from the University of Missouri to Washington, D.C. I probably stopped for gas. 

I left behind family and friends and roots. I bounced from D.C. to New York and back again. I returned to Virginia, where I was born, to set down roots with a wife but not until I was 47. At this remove, I ponder deeply the importance of staying put, of stability. 

When I was 14, my family moved to what I consider my hometown of St. Charles, Missouri; and I recall that all the boys I met had known each other since kindergarten. There is a profound civilizational aspect to that, to lifelong connections and friendships and ballplaying. I was an outsider. There is a rootedness to people and to place. My brother and his family are back there. His children and their children are there, rooted among those people and that county. So is my sister and hers. And my mother is there. They all live within half a mile of each other. They’ve been in St. Charles for more than 50 years. 

And because I drove away from all that, I think a lot about something similar here in Northern Virginia where my roots are set but where hardly anyone is an actual native—no more than 11 percent, according to my friend Casey Chalk, whose roots go generations-deep here in Fairfax County. 

I am writing a book for Sophia Institute Press that we are calling Not Just for Kings: Cultivating a Five Hundred Year Vision for Your Family, in which I consider what kings, nobles, and the wealthy can teach us about protecting your family and even projecting it through the ages. One of the secrets, I think, is stability. Staying. Digging in. Building.  

It is hard for us Americans because moving is in our blood. Our people came on leaky boats from far-off places. And when they got here, they tended to keep moving. My ancestor John Balch came from England in 1623, not for freedom but for fish. He founded Salem, Massachusetts, and then kept moving west. My Luman line came here from Switzerland in the mid-18th century. And then they moved west. My Ruse ancestors came from Germany around 1750, settled in Virginia for a good long while, and then moved west. This thing is in our blood; it makes sense Americans were first to the moon. We have this itch to move.  

But kings have a different approach. We know they have something to protect, certainly. But it is more than crown. It is also place. It is also name. They tend to stay. 

An old friend from school days settled here in Northern Virginia, but settled is the wrong word because he didn’t really settle. When his children graduated and went off to far-flung colleges, only ever to visit, never to live, he and his wife retired to the mountains of North Carolina. Where is the family place when parents move? After a few years, he and his wife up and moved again to another state. Where is the family place? Nowhere. He has little chance now to sink deep roots to place, to community. He is like a Gypsy, except that Gypsies travel with kith and kin. They travel with family story—their saga—not like baggage but like treasure. For most of us, a little bit of family saga gets left behind with every move. 

Another friend’s mother and father retired to Florida. They moved away from home and family and roots. And then the mother died, and the faither is alone way down there where family can only visit from time to time. There was a family place. Where is it now?

In my book, I argue it is time for us to dig in. The West is settled. There is no more free land. The range is closed. It is time to dig in especially now because the cultural snipers occupy all the high ground. This digging in with others of like mind is a way to ensure our family’s survival. Tumbleweeds tumble because they have no roots. We easily rip up the wispy, rootless weeds in our back yard. The trees in my backyard are only leveled by chainsaw or microburst. 

Digging in is also a way for our family saga to endure and be known by our descendants. Today, in the here and now, we must live like ancestors because ancestors we shall be. Let our descendants know where we lived and died, and let them know where we are buried. Eduard Habsburg told me the most important place is where you will be buried. Let your ancestors know those places. My mother travels every year through northern Missouri into Iowa and back decorating the graves of our Luman ancestors, five generations back. Let your descendants know their ancestors’ graves, that is to say, let them know your graves, and let them honor and decorate. 

This is not about ego. It is about continuing the saga. You are a main character but for a few decades, and then you deserve to live as the family credits roll. There is a compact between and among generations that is passed hand to hand, heart to heart. Woe to those who break it by doing something as stupid and selfish as retiring to Florida. 

There is a community here in Northern Virginia from which I am never leaving and to which I pray my children will become rooted. I call it the Great Northern Virginia Catholic Clan: dozens of mission-oriented families, vibrant parishes, orthodox schools. Our families are intermarrying. Across the Potomac River, there is the Great Maryland Catholic Clan. There is one in Dallas, and St. Louis, Cincinnati, Steubenville. I hear there is even one in Birmingham, Alabama. Connect all these together and others like them and we have a Great National Tribe—yes, we are a tribe—of faithful families. Our descendants must know these particular places where multi-generational families live together, sunk deep into these cities, these counties, and into the land of memory. 

And above all, continue your family story, yeah unto the sixth generation. Let them know in 2525 that you were here and that you inherited something beautiful, you held this compact for a little while and then passed it on to them. Your family saga is just as important as the Habsburg’s. 

Children: go away to college but come home. Parents: do not retire to Florida. All of you, stay. Stay.