Howard Kaiser passed away on November 10, 2025. He is survived by his brother Steve (Carla); his niece Melanie (Alex); his devoted wife of over 31 years Susan; his three children Jessica (Fernando), Abraham Joshua, and Jillian; his grandchildren Tori and FJ; and his dog Spock. A combination of challenges surrounding paperwork issues and not receiving a pension and social security benefits thus far after his retirement have left us not knowing how to cover all of the funeral and medical costs. We express extreme gratitude towards anyone willing to help.

For the past three years, Howard had been battling an autoimmune condition called Bullous Pemphigoid (BP). Howard had a pulmonary embolism on April 19, 2025 and had been in and out of the hospital since then with a variety of complications. Since April, his condition BP, in combination with other health issues, had led to sepsis twice. He fought as a true warrior for many months until his passing.

Howard was/is not receiving pension

Howard was in the process of retiring during these past few months — Howard completed and signed all paperwork by his September 30 retirement deadline. We received written confirmation that all necessary paperwork for retirement was in. Over two weeks later, we were told that the retirement needed to be certified using his PIN (digital signature). At this point, he was in the ICU and extremely delirious, from a combination of ICU delirium, sepsis confusion, and probably effects of strong medications. He thus did not know the PIN, and none of us knew the PIN. He therefore did not receive his monthly $5,000 pension annuity payment for October, and we believe not for November too.

Susan contacted several individuals and no one helped. Howard passed away before being officially retired. Susan is entitled to a life insurance policy that they may try to withhold because they resigned dad on September 30 instead of retiring him. We are still attempting to have the retiring situation resolved.

Howard was unable to apply for Social Security and Medicare

Howard’s driver’s license was set to expire by his birthday at the end of September. He was so sick for so long that he did not know that this was upcoming, and none of us knew either until a week beforehand as we were all busy advocating for his health. Susan went to Howard’s primary case physician to fill out a form for a medical extension on Howard’s driver’s license. The doctor verbally promised to fill out the medical extension. Without a valid driver’s license, he could not apply for Social Security and Medicare.

Susan dropped off the forms and paid the $25 fee; everything should have been set to renew his license. The license never arrived in the mail. We were then told that the physician changed their mind about filling out the forms, but no one had contacted us with this information prior. At this point, the deadline for renewing the license had been passed, even though all necessary actions were taken by the family before the deadline approached. We hired a personal elder care manager to help us straighten this out and are actively working on this. This cost so far is $1,500 but this may increase. He therefore has not been receiving the $5,000 a month that he would be entitled to from Social Security benefits.

Other information

Howard signed up for the deferred resignation program in March. He instead was made to use all of his sick days that he had saved up, and was only on the deferred resignation program for two months. If he was entitled to a lump sum of sick leave upon retirement or passing away, he never got that.

It is unfortunate that Howard and our family were not told early on to hire an elder care manager/advocate or elder care lawyer to take over completion of his retirement. With the severe condition he was in, he was not healthy enough to handle it — even with help from the family. Overall we are now left in a financial situation that we do not know how to solve. We appreciate the help of Howard's workplace, the retirement counselor, all physicians involved, and the elder care manager actively working to help us, and do not intend to place blame on anyone. Unfortunately, the reality is that there have been miscommunications and paperwork issues that have led to deadlines being technically missed.

We’d like to note that Susan, 64, is unable to work due to her own health issues and does not receive pension from her own retired job, so we are not in the position to take out 20k to cover costs. Additionally, Susan's health insurance is received through Howard’s work, and thus through the pension, so her health insurance will depend on resolving the pension issue.

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How the money will be used

The funeral costs are a total of $10,930. This breakdown is $4,930 for costs from the cemetery (burial, etc.) and $6,000 for funeral home costs (transport, coffin, etc.). The out of pocket medical costs are $7,000. The private case manager cost is $1,500 so far. The legal cost is to be determined. All funds will go towards covering these costs.

We can post updates as to whether we are able to resolve the retiring/pension situation, the social security situation, etc.

For more information, please contact Jill, and from here you can be put in contact with the rest of the family if you would like.

Thank you all for any help you can provide to relieve our financial stress during this time of mourning.