The following is a cautionary tale, particularly for couples around retirement age.

Leonard “Butch” Saari of St. Paul worked 37 years as a machinist at Honeywell’s Stinson Boulevard plant in Minneapolis.

Described as well-liked and a good family man by co-workers I spoke with, Saari was most proud of making gyroscopes — an essential aircraft navigation and steering device.

“He brought one home for us to see and it was really cool,” his wife of 33 years, Sue, recalled last week.

But Leonard was forced to take medical leave in 2010 after a series of serious illnesses. At age 55, he thought it was best for him and his family to accept an early retirement offer.

Along with his wife and a daughter, Ashly Saari, who at the time worked in the pensions department at Securian Financial, Leonard Saari tried to make sense of confusing and similarly worded early retirement pension options. According to his wife and daughter, he took out a pen and put a star to the one he wanted, one that would provide a monthly pension benefit to his wife after he died.

That same week, he went to his computer and finalized the choice online. His wife, assuming he had picked the option they discussed, later signed and submitted without reading a required notarized consent form acknowledging her husband’s decision.

That consent waiver form warned that “I understand this payment option may provide no benefit or reduced benefit to me after my spouse’s death.”

The Saaris went about their lives, one dominated by bouts of illnesses and hospital visits. Two years later, on June 13, 2012, Saari died in his sleep at home from health ailments that included “chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.”

Six days later, as she got dressed to attend her husband’s memorial service, she received a call from someone at Honeywell notifying her that she was not entitled to any surviving spouse pension benefits.

She spent most of that day in a fog, both from mourning and from the caller’s shocking message. How could this be?

Well, it turns out that Leonard Saari may have mistakenly clicked the wrong option, Level Income Age 62, which granted him $2,961.92 monthly until age 62 and then $1,427.66 thereafter but left no pension benefit to his spouse after his death.

That option, however, is not the one in the paperwork I was shown that he underlined and drew a star next to in pen. That one, “Level Income 62 with 100 percent Joint and Survivor,” would give him $2,628.04 monthly until age 62 and $1,180.04 thereafter. But both amounts would respectively go to his wife in the event of his death before or after he reached 62.

Sue Saari has spent the past seven years trying to convince anyone who will listen that this was a mistake and not her husband’s intent.

“It’s been a nightmare,” Sue Saari told me recently.

“I worked in pensions,” said Ashly Saari. “We sat down, we discussed this, and he picked the right one. But we were not there when he went to the computer.”

Sue Saari eventually reached out to Honeywell.

“We had gone over all the paperwork we received and thought we picked the right one,” she wrote. “It was pretty confusing … he told my daughter and me, he wanted me to get the most I was entitled to, if anything happened to him.

“Why would he, on purpose, select that I get nothing? It was a life-changing mistake?” she wrote.

Tough luck.

“Mrs. Saari is not eligible for any surviving spouse pension benefits,” a Honeywell benefits analyst wrote in 2016 to an official at the Minnesota Attorney General office who had inquired on Saari’s behalf. The letter went on to inform Sue Saari that she could file a claim but “any legal action in connection with the Plan must be brought in the federal District Court of New Jersey within the six-month period beginning on the date the claimant’s claim and appeals rights under the Plan are exhausted.”

This is legal gobbledygook to a widowed grandmother scraping by on social security disability, a lifelong St. Paul east-sider who now lives with one of her two grown daughters because she could not bear to stay inside the home where her husband died. She was the one who found him in their bed after returning from a grandson’s T-ball game.

Yet, she kept trying. She consulted with several lawyers. All expressed sympathy but all declined to take her case. She reached out to U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s office.

“They were really nice and tried, but nothing came of it,” she said.

She contacted the Upper Midwest Pension Rights Center.

Staff attorney David Bonello reviewed her case but concluded she had no legal standing to claim the benefits or fight the company in court.

“I reviewed other cases as well, and none appeared to support a defense of mistake or confusion,” Bonello wrote back.

She said she sent another letter to Honeywell last summer asking to apply again for a claim but has yet to hear back.

“This is just wrong,” said Tom Aguirre, a now-retired long-time co-worker and friend of Leonard Saari. “He was a stand-up guy, a good family man, and there’s no way he would have done that deliberately to his wife.”

The couple first met at the old Chain Link bar on Suburban Avenue. She was 19. Leonard was celebrating his 21st birthday there with a friend.

“He told me that I was the best birthday present he got that day,” she said in a choked voice. A harmonica and extensive vinyl blues record collection are among the few treasured possessions her husband left behind.

“He loved all kinds of music,” she said.

“My mother cared for him and they never really enjoyed his retirement because he was ill,” Ashly said. “Then she finds out on the day of the service there was nothing left for her. It’s been heartbreaking for her.”

To be fair, Honeywell hasn’t done anything legally wrong here. And Sue Saari acknowledges that the family made errors in hindsight — not double-checking the chosen option, not reading the spousal consent waiver form. They also lament not sitting down first with Honeywell folks or members of her husband’s Teamsters union to go over the paperwork before signing on the dotted line.

Honeywell is willing to take another look.

“Thank you again for alerting us to this issue,” Nati Katz, Honeywell’s senior director of external communications, said to me in an email. “Honeywell will review Mrs. Saari’s request and respond to her as appropriate.”

Bonello and Scott Buchanan, the non-profit center’s legal director, stressed that Saari’s plight is not that uncommon. It also sadly underscores the grave need for families to educate themselves and understand retirement pension plans, spousal waivers and other critical paperwork before a final decision is made.

“Unfortunately, it’s an issue,” said Buchanan, adding that the center provides free consultation for families on pension rights before they make such choices. “People fail to understand the gravity of what they are waiving. There’s also this perception that you will be protected (pension wise) when this person dies. It builds a false sense of trust in them.”

Indeed, Saari’s experience serves as a warning and wake-up call to pension-eligible family and friends of retirement age who she says are now better prepared to not make the same mistake when their time comes up.

“I feel like I’m a smart person,” she said. “This should not happen to other people.

“Yes, in the end, I would love to get the benefits because I know that’s what he wanted and that he deserved it. He put so much sweat into that company and I promised him that I would see this to the end …”