Being Responsible

"Most of us can read the writing on the wall;

we just assume it's addressed to someone else."

~Ivern Ball

Wanna know what my husband and I did yesterday?

We purchased Dignity Memorial pre-need insurance from our local funeral home.

We purchased only for Mark because, frankly, he's likely to die much sooner than me.  Also, we can barely afford to add this expense into our budget, let alone both of us, right now.  Might add me once we've paid off our car, which should be later this year.

Blech.

It's hard to pinpoint how I feel about this.  It's hard to believe we're at this place in life.  Hard to believe we're old and responsible enough to actually plan for death.  Shouldn't 37 and 42 be too young for such considerations?  I think yes.  But, Mark is not your typical 42 year old.

Blech.

Joe, the guy who came to talk to us about this, used to work with Mark at Home Depot, so that was kind of cool.  Living in a small-ish town is so interesting!  Joe was super nice, really cut out for this line of work I think.  Mark calls it "selling death".

Mark also likes to say things like "they haven't found a way to kill me yet" and "just roll me up in a carpet and throw me in a ditch".  I just might have the first quote inscribed on his urn, the smart ass!

Speaking of urns, we chose a sleek and stylish stainless steel rectangular one.  I commented, "it will look good in any room!"  Guess I'm a smart ass too. :-D

I didn't cry during any of this, but I totally could have when Joe talked about the option to bring in a bunch of pictures of Mark and they could put together a little video type thing set to music for viewing during his service.  Gawd!  When I admitted to Mark that I almost cried at that point he told me to try to look at this as any other transaction, like it's just one more insurance policy.  OK, honey, I'll try.

Blech.

I think I hate death.  My mom keeps going on and on about how it's just "moving on" and actually kind of cool, or some such nonsense like that.  Sure, cool for the person who died, but NOT cool for the people left behind to grieve the loss.  I know my mom knows this and is only trying to lend a different perspective and perhaps soften it a bit, maybe help alleviate some of my fear of the day it finally happens to Mark.  And it was her who spurred me to bring up the subject of pre-planning to Mark, who had apparently been thinking about it as well.  I realized that was my biggest concern post Mark, where the money would come from to have his funeral.  And the last thing you want to stress about at a time like that is money, I'm sure!

Well, it's my biggest immediate concern, not necessarily my biggest overall concern.  That will be the grieving process.....

So now that we've done this, I have to try not to dwell on it.  Besides, Mark has to live at least another 5 years in order to pay the thing off!  I'll have 10 years to pay off mine since I'm all uber healthy 'n stuff.  Haha!

"A new position of responsibility will usually show a man to be

a far stronger creature than was supposed."

~William James