Can you remember a time of health? A time in the past when you were pain-free, able to have the cognitive acuity to focus, concentrate, and attend to the details of a task? A time past is a reminder of the potentiality of a time-future.
In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, the central point of the administrative process should always be kept in mind: to reach a point in life where one can have a recuperative period of rest, restorative time, and multiple days beyond pain and ill health. But just as the “gestalt” moment in a psychological awakening is not the end of the story, but merely a slice of life in a greater context of historicity, so the various events of the administrative process in preparing, formulating, filing, and finally obtaining Federal Disability Retirement benefits from OPM is not the end of the narrative for the Federal or Postal employee seeking to obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits.
There is life beyond; as such, obtaining an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement application is merely the beginning of the next step, and not the “end” of anything. An approval from OPM is a goal worth achieving; but such a goal is merely an intermediate step in a greater cause: of attaining a state of health, somewhat like the “former” self of yesteryears; of planning for a brighter future in a second vocation; and to be able to enjoy one’s family, friends, and the circle of those closest and most important: those who have been loyal, even when loyalty revealed a disappointment in those whom you depended upon, and thought you could depend upon.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Disability Retirement, Et Cetera… 