As they neared their retirement, Madeline Waid and her husband Jim, both from the United States, were eager to spread their wings.
The couple, who were based in Randolph, Vermont, had previously considered relocating, but started “seriously looking at getting out of the US” in late 2016.
The former anesthesiologist says she didn’t feel as though she had enough money to retire earlier in the United States, and was keen to move somewhere with a lower cost of living.
“I knew I was ready to retire, and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to, maybe for potentially many more years if I stayed in the States,” Madeline, originally from Elko, Nevada, tells CNN Travel.
Retirement dream
Her husband, who’d lived in Germany during his childhood, had “always wanted to move back to Europe” and Madeline became more open to this idea when “politics in the US got more intolerant.”
Jim, an IT professor who previously taught in countries such as Iraq, got his wish when they relocated to Spain in September 2019.
“It was feasible for us to retire early on his social security, sell our house, move here and live a good life,” she says. “And that’s what we did.”
The couple lived a carefree life in Spain together for two years. But everything changed back in 2021, when Jim was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He passed away in late 2022.
Looking back on the circumstances that led to their move, Madeline, who has two children from her first marriage, explains that they had initially looked into moving to Germany, where Jim had many fond memories.
“Germany didn’t want us because we were old, retired people,” she explains, adding that they also considered South America and Portugal before deciding on Spain.
After doing some research into various Spanish destinations, the couple, who married in 2003, settled on the city of Valencia, situated on Spain’s eastern coast, taking a trip over to make sure that it was the right place for them.
Madeline says that they knew they wanted to live there within 24 hours of arriving.
“I’m interested in classical music, and Valencia has a really strong music culture,” she explains, adding that they found the locals to be “really friendly” and loved how walkable the city was. “There’s a lot of art. And my husband liked the climate here.”
Leap of faith
On returning to the US, Madeline and Jim began the process of applying for a non-lucrative visa, which allows non-EU nationals to live in Spain without working provided that they can prove that they have enough money to support themselves, and looking for a property in Spain.
Although they bought a two-bedroom apartment in the El Carmen neighborhood in 2017, it would be another two years before they’d actually move there.
“I was not allowed to take any vacation really once I declared that I was retiring,” she explains, adding that her husband, who had already retired by that point, traveled back and forth from Vermont to Valencia to get things “lined up” while she finished up at work.
“We packed up as soon as I was done,” she says. “I went and visited my kids down in the Boston area for a week. And then off we went.”
After getting rid of most of their belongings and selling their Vermont home, the couple finally moved to Valencia permanently in 2019, taking just two suitcases and their dogs, Cleo and Luna, with them.
While Madeline admits that it was hard to leave her children behind in the US, she stresses that they were very supportive.
“They’re adults, and they like to travel,” she says. “They thought it was pretty cool that I was moving someplace that they would get to come to.
“And to be honest, Spain is actually easier to get to from the East Coast, than the West Coast was for us to go visit their grandparents. So it’s not as difficult as it first seems.”
Madeline describes her and Jim’s first few months in Valencia as “like living on vacation,” explaining that it took a little while to get used to not having anywhere particular to be.
“I had just retired,” she adds. “So there was a little bit of that feeling — you’re kind of restless when you first retire.
“I was really looking forward to it. But so much of your identity is wrapped up in your work… and now just I’m just hanging out. It kind of felt weird.”
Aside from “hanging out,” Madeline and Jim spent some time traveling around Spain, visiting Barcelona, Madrid and Granada, and threw themselves into learning Spanish.
“Everybody was interested in being my language teacher, which is great,” she says, explaining that they both ended up enrolling in different language schools.
“And then having dogs, you really meet a lot more people that way too. That was a good opportunity to practice Spanish…
“There were so many more human connections here than I was getting in the US, even in a small town.”
Madeline also felt that the Spanish had a “much healthier division between life and work,” which she admired.
“They work hard, but when it’s done. It’s done,” she says.
Madeline and Jim were taking one of their many trips around the country when the Covid-19 pandemic hit Spain in early 2020, and they quickly returned to Valencia.
Heartbreaking diagnosis
“We were pretty much locked up until June,” she says. “So that was interesting. And I was glad we were here.
“It really made me feel, in many ways, more a part of the community, because we had all gone through this together.”
And the couple found themselves leaning on the local community heavily when Jim was given that heartbreaking diagnosis just a year later.
“It was a really bad diagnosis,” says Madeline. “And so after that, because he was getting various forms of therapy that diminished his immunity to communicable disease, we really had to curtail our life.
“And that was the hard part for that year. Because watching your husband die is bad enough.
“And then, he was seeing that we couldn’t do all these things that we had planned to do.”
Madeline points out that some of their friends and family assumed that Jim would return to the States, but he ultimately decided to remain in Spain and receive treatment there.
“The healthcare is so much more consistent and better and cheaper here,” she says, stressing that they had every confidence in the Spanish health care system, which the couple were able to access by paying a small fee premium each month.
Fortunately, Madeline and Jim happened to be living close to a specialist hospital, which Madeline had previously noticed while walking their dogs during the pandemic.
“So he was treated there, and it was state of the art, everything,” says Madeline. “It was fantastic. And if we’d been in Vermont, we would have been living in a rural area.
“It was a 40-minute drive to the nearest real medical center. So it would have been much more difficult.”
Madeline also notes that Jim’s treatment would likely have been “much more expensive” back home.
“I think with the expense of having a terminal cancer diagnosis in the States, I would have been working into my 70s to pay that off,” she adds.
Being in Spain ultimately meant that they had to go through Jim’s illness without having close family around them, but Madeline stresses that the close bonds they formed in Valencia meant that it felt “pretty darn close.”
Jim died just days before Christmas in 2022. Madeline initially chose only to tell their family, so as not to “be sending bad news at Christmas time.”
However, she later decided to reach out to some of the Muslim students Jim had taught in Iraq, as she “wouldn’t be ruining a holiday for them” and was thrilled to receive calls from three of them.
“In many ways, that was the best possible way I could have spent that Christmas,” she reflects.
“Talking to young people in a developing country to whom he was very important. That was really wonderful. So, in a weird way, I have some very good memories of that Christmas.”
Community spirit
After a few days, Madeline “had to venture out for food” and was overwhelmed by the kindness and goodwill she received from the local community.
“I really hadn’t mentioned it to anybody around that he’d died,” she says, adding that “everybody knew he was sick.”
“Every business I went by, the proprietor came out, gave me a hug, told me how sorry they were, asked if there was anything they could do. It was incredible.
“And I think the support I had from people far away, from people nearby, made that so much easier than it could have been.
“And I’m not sure it would have been like that in the US, even in the town I lived in in Vermont for six years.”
When asked if she considered going back home after her husband’s death, Madeline says she always knew that she’d remain in Spain and had talked to Jim about it well before they became aware of his illness.
“We had discussed that in theory, because he was older than I was,” she says. “And he said, ‘I hope that you can get comfortable enough there that when I die… You will just stay there, because I would love to think of you thriving there.’
“And I said, ‘Well, we’ll just have to see what happens’. And by the time he got sick, I was like, ‘There is no way I’m going back.’ So he got to hear me say that.”
A few months after Jim’s death, Madeline moved to a three-bedroom new-build apartment that they had previously purchased in a neighborhood called Malilla.
“He died in December, and I moved in in March,” she says. “So he never got to see it.”
Although she hated leaving behind the community that she had grown to love so dearly, Madeline feels that this was for the best, as it would have been too hard to continue living there without her beloved husband.
“There’s one shopping center I can’t even go to anymore, just because it was right next to the hospital,” Madeline says. “And the times that I had to run errands over there to get stuff were pretty horrible.”
Adapting to life without Jim has been a tough process for Madeline, but she feels that she has no choice but to carry on.
“This kind of is the life we had envisioned,” she says. “I’m just doing it alone. And that is life. I mean, it could have been me who died, and I expect he would have carried on. Because, what else can you do?”
Madeline has also found herself having to deal with a lot of “business stuff” in Spanish by herself, which was an area that Jim, who she describes as a “linguist” who “learned languages at the drop of a hat,” usually took care of.
“It was empowering, in a way,” she says. “Because I was able to manage, and it gave me a lot of confidence for going ahead here alone. Or sort of alone.”
Madeline explains that she doesn’t feel completely alone thanks to the strong network of close friends that they were able to build in Spain.
“I think the hardest thing for a lot of Americans in Spain, is that Spaniards socialize with their families much more than with friends,” she says.
“So it took us a while. My husband was really against hanging out with expats… And I was like, ‘Jim, we’re not going to hang out with anybody unless we start hanging out with some expats,’ Which we did.”
Among Madeline’s many friends are a younger Spanish couple with two children who often invite her along to local family events “that tourists never get to go to.”
“We really hit it off,” she says. “I’m like an aunt for them. It’s a lot of fun. They’re lovely to me.”
While residing in Spain as a widow wasn’t something she’d anticipated happening so soon, Madeline has been able to find her feet over time, and is feeling a lot more confident nowadays.
She says she’s been filling her time with “learning stuff,” taking regular piano, German and Spanish classes, as well as going to classical music concerts.
“I think that the biggest gift that retirement has given me is not being tied to a demanding schedule,” she says.
Madeline very much enjoys the slower pace of life and “live and let live attitude” in the country, explaining that it reminds her of growing up in Elko in the 1960s.
“There’s just a kind of a joy to it that is not present in the United States anymore,” she says.
Madeline returns to the US at least once a year — both of her children still live there. However, she suspects that her daughter would be keen to come over and join her in Spain one day.
“My kids know I’m not coming back,” she says.
Aside from her close friends and family, Madeline says that it’s her dogs that have kept her spirits up, enabling her to continue to get up every day and keep moving forward.
“It’s a beautiful thing when you have dogs,” she says. “I’m glad I do. They’re a lot of work. But they definitely made me keep going. “
While she’s very content in Spain, Madeline says she does miss some things about her life in Vermont, and occasionally longs for snow.
“I’d like to go see snow sometime,” she says. “So some of it is the seasons. Seeing my kids, that’s the biggest thing.
“And old friends. Because I do have a lot of old friends there. But beyond that, not really that much.”
