File this under 'mortality'.
I am 44 tomorrow.
44 is the age that my primary male role model was when he died. Not surprisingly, I feel a little like I am off the edge of the map.
Mind you, I never really lived up to the type of person he was, but I have tried.
He had great health insurance, and died after being hospitalized on and off for more than a year. He managed to leave some money to the family. In fact, he simply managed things well, but he knew he was sick for almost a decade and had time to plan.
He did not get to grow old gracefully, and he's not around to teach me to grow old gracefully, so I am pretty certain I'd better find someone who has some skill in that area and start taking lessons.
This has put me in mind of an old brick layer I knew. He was in his 60's, and had lung cancer. They cut out half of one lung and part of the other, and then subjected him to chemotherapy, but the chemo seemed like going through the motions. We all knew he was dying.
How did we know? Because he kept showing up to work. He'd leave for his treatments, and come back and vomit off the side of the scaffold, but he kept showing up, every day, rain or shine. We could look at him and it was obvious he was not going to last, and equally obvious that he didn't intend to.
So we asked about it. Because that's what you do. And he explained.
See, his wife had never had a job. She raised the children. And while they were grown, she had no experience, and any income she provided at this point would be taken out of their benefits, or some such situation. She was taking care of grandchildren during the day, and not in the best of health, herself. The short version is that he needed to keep working in order to keep them both insured, covering the cost of both of their medication, and then when he died social security would take over and take care of her. But her having an income was a bad idea, so he just kept coming to work at the job that was literally killing him by inches every day.
He was very matter of fact about his plan to work until he died.
And he did.
For myself, I don't think that is the type of graceful I am interested in emulating.
Guess I'd better come up with a plan.
44 is the age that my primary male role model was when he died. Not surprisingly, I feel a little like I am off the edge of the map.
Mind you, I never really lived up to the type of person he was, but I have tried.
He had great health insurance, and died after being hospitalized on and off for more than a year. He managed to leave some money to the family. In fact, he simply managed things well, but he knew he was sick for almost a decade and had time to plan.
He did not get to grow old gracefully, and he's not around to teach me to grow old gracefully, so I am pretty certain I'd better find someone who has some skill in that area and start taking lessons.
This has put me in mind of an old brick layer I knew. He was in his 60's, and had lung cancer. They cut out half of one lung and part of the other, and then subjected him to chemotherapy, but the chemo seemed like going through the motions. We all knew he was dying.
How did we know? Because he kept showing up to work. He'd leave for his treatments, and come back and vomit off the side of the scaffold, but he kept showing up, every day, rain or shine. We could look at him and it was obvious he was not going to last, and equally obvious that he didn't intend to.
So we asked about it. Because that's what you do. And he explained.
See, his wife had never had a job. She raised the children. And while they were grown, she had no experience, and any income she provided at this point would be taken out of their benefits, or some such situation. She was taking care of grandchildren during the day, and not in the best of health, herself. The short version is that he needed to keep working in order to keep them both insured, covering the cost of both of their medication, and then when he died social security would take over and take care of her. But her having an income was a bad idea, so he just kept coming to work at the job that was literally killing him by inches every day.
He was very matter of fact about his plan to work until he died.
And he did.
For myself, I don't think that is the type of graceful I am interested in emulating.
Guess I'd better come up with a plan.