Life is Fleeting

Last Thursday morning, we learned that my supervisor’s wife didn’t survive the brain aneurysm.  She passed away on Wednesday.  There hasn’t been much more information coming. However, that same afternoon, the store manager stopped by the department to say that Bob was taking his last week of vacation and his bereavement leave and would (probably) be back the following week.  As of this writing, there hasn’t been any more information, I’ve been scouring the local newspapers (both online and off) for her obituary, but it hasn’t been published yet.  Or perhaps it’s being published further afield, though I’m not certain why that would be the case, as they were both from this area.

Whenever someone dies that was close to you, either directly or indirectly, it causes one to consider their own mortality.  And the mortality of those close to you.  As for me, it reminded me of several issues I have in my own life regarding what to do ‘when it happens‘.  My wife and I have wills, but they’re not finalized nor notarized, so if one (or both) of us happened to die unexpectedly, the state we live in would be the determiner of who gets our money, and that usually means a windfall for the government, not us or anyone we might have designated.  Too, I had an abbreviated meeting with an insurance person, who informed me the life insurance policy I’ve been paying into for the past 30 years might not be there when I turn 65.  So that, too, needs to be looked into.  I want it to be there for my heirs to use for their needs, not the needs of the company that wrote/sold the policy in the first place.  So there are things to consider, things to do, and not procrastinate about (not my strongest suit).

FWIW, I actually dealt with the insurance policy thing this morning. As it turns out, my policy is Whole Life, which I actually did correctly plan for back in 1995.  I probably was thinking about the future of my marriage, seeing as, at the time, I’d only been hitched for 2 years.  So my policy is secure so long as I continue making the payments continue paying back the loan I’d taken a few years ago against it, and so on.  As long as I continue throwing money at it, it will be there for when the time comes, and it’s needed.  So that is one thing that’s taken care of.

It also got me thinking about end-of-life arrangements, in terms of handling the money, once one or both of us shuffle off the mortal coil.  When we were dating, and thinking about getting married, my financial house of cards did not have a good foundation.  I wasn’t in debt exactly, but I was using every wile and trick I could think of to both keep myself afloat and pay the bills for my father’s nursing home.  His pension and social security were barely enough to keep him there (he had Alzheimer’s), and the family money had been taken by my older brother and wasn’t available for what it was designed for.  So I had to make up the difference, and it was causing me financial distress.  To that end, my fiance and I decided to keep our finances separate, and once we got married, that stayed the same.  Even now, nearly 30 years later, that’s the case.  She has her own credit cards, I have mine, we have no joint checking account, the mortgage is in her name only, and so on.

Bottom line, something of this magnitude gets the thoughts working along, and it’s a good thing too, as in if one doesn’t consider these issues, more often than not, things will be decided without your input, and at this stage of the game, it wouldn’t be too good if that were to happen.  So the pieces need to keep moving on the board.

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