PREPARE BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW

I need to write again for my own sanity.  It helps to clear my head and helps me to think about things that need thinking about.  As I sat thinking about what to write two things came to mind.  First I do not want to write about how COVID-19 is effecting me and how I see it effecting others.  We have plenty to read on that topic and nobody knows for sure much about it anyway.  Secondly I did not want to write another piece on Barbara or how life has changed since she passed.  I do not want to burn out my readers by hearing that over and over again. There will be plenty of time to write about many things concerning my life with Barb.  I tried to do this in my last entry concerning Debbie but by the time I got to the end of it, there was still a lot of Barbara in there.  I suppose that is how it will probably be from now on.  So much of my life experiences had Barbara involved in them with me.  After all two-thirds of my life was spent with her.  This is another experience that she and I shared together.

This is about preparing for events that we do not know when or how they will happen.  This is about being ready for as much as we possibly can and the steps that we took to prepare for these things.

One big lesson that I was taught came from Barbara's daddy, Harry.  Harry was a very wise and thoughtful man who had lived through a difficult childhood and ended up making his way through life on his own.  I haven't written much about Harry but I could write a lot.  I can make a direct comparison between Harry and my grandfather and my father.  Both had to deal with events that basically were out of their control and somehow learn to control it as best as they could.  Harry had to deal with making a career out of something he loved, raising two daughters while caring for a wife who was seriously mentally ill.  It was not easy for him or for his daughters.  Harry, however, was able to visualize down the road of life and see what would be required if he were to live a normal lifetime and that is where my lesson from Harry came from.

I was young.  I am not even sure I was his son at the time when he spoke this magic sentence that led me to prepare for the future decades away.  I remember that sentence so clearly.  Harry knew that with Barb and myself being so young, we were making our way through life basically from paycheck to paycheck.  I have tried to pass this quote down to my son and my nieces and nephews through the years.

So you are wondering what this sentence was that changed my life so dramatically?  It was a very simple sentence but filled with some very heavy wisdom.  Harry told me, "When you sit down to pay your bills every month, be sure to pay yourself first."  That was it.  Simple.  Direct.  Wise.  I thought about that advice for a long time.  It made sense to follow that advise but as we all know it isn't always easy, especially when you are just beginning your path through life.

One day, we had a big Human Resources meeting at the company.  It had been at least five years since Harry had bestowed upon me that little piece of wisdom.  The company was starting a new program called a 401k account.  The idea was that money would be held from your check voluntarily and would not be taxable at the end of the year.  It would be invested by an outside source in various markets to maximize the yield of the money.  Furthermore, for the first seven percent of your salary that you set aside for retirement, the company would match it.  So if I decided to set aside that seven percent a month, I would be investing fourteen percent of my salary towards our future and it would all be tax free until I decided to retire.  Even now it almost seems to good to be true, which was why I thought about it for awhile.  While I was thinking, those words that Harry had spoken to me a few years before came back to mind, "pay yourself first..."

I took all the reading material home and studied it.  This was back before the internet was really a thing in ordinary households so I was not able to "google" anything but instead had to read up on it myself.  Barb and I discussed it and decided we could afford somewhere around four percent to set aside at the time.  As our circumstances changed over the years, we could adjust our contributions to the 401k which we did.

Now the time is drawing near that all of that savings over the last thirty five years or so will assist me as I look forward to retirement in October of 2021.  I will be 65 years old, receive Social Security benefits and have that investment from my 401k to tap into if I need to.  Hopefully by then the markets will have recovered sufficiently enough to get me back to where I was before this whole virus thing crashed the markets over the last few weeks.

Even if my money does not recover to it's high points, it is still good to know that I have a safety net of sorts as I begin my life of leisure, as they call retirement.  It was a plan.  It was preparation for the future.  I feel good about it.

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It was a spring day, a Saturday I believe, in 1982 when we received a knock on our door.  The gentleman who was making a visit to us was from Floral Hills Cemetery and Funeral Home.  He said in introducing himself that he was there to help us get prepared for something that everyone has to deal with at some point in life, that being death.  Barbara invited him in to talk before I had a chance to say we were not interested.  For the next two hours or so we talked with this man about what our plans were for the future.

At this time we had begun the process of applying to adopt a child from the Missouri Baptist Children's Home and so talk about preparing for the future found it's way into our thinking.  It made sense to both of us.  Pre-plan everything now for something that could happen at anytime.  The fact is that nobody knows what tomorrow may hold.

We did purchase a pre-plan for the future.  I am not sure what Barb's final thoughts that made her mind up were, but for me it was basically a concern for Barb and for our future child.  If something happened to me, the majority of the funeral plans would be paid for.  This included the plot for our final resting place, the casket, service cost, the grave marker, basically everything except the opening and the closing of the grave.  As young as we were, chances were that the majority of the funeral cost for me would already be paid for and Barb would not have to deal with whatever emotions she might be dealing with while trying to make decisions concerning a funeral.  Anything that was not completely paid for would be taken care of with my life insurance policies that she would receive upon my death.  This was a way to take a lot of the stress from the life changing event that she would face.

We finished paying off the pre-plan several years ago.  It was about that time that Barbara's health began to worsen on an ever increasing pace.

July 23, 2018.  I had spent the night at the hospital holding Barb's hand as she lay in a coma for what had been a week.  From the events of the day before I knew that this would be the last day of our time together.  It was about 7:00 that morning when an old friend of mine, Phil, showed up to visit Barbara to find me there with her.  Phil knew what I knew.  This was not going to get better.  Later he told me that when he walked into that ICU room he wondered if I realized what was happening and when he looked me in the eye he realized that yes, I did know what was happening.  Phil left and soon my sister Karen arrived to sit with me at Barbara's side.  Soon a few of my cousins arrived at the hospital as they had everyday over the previous week.  It was at 10:00 in the morning that day when the doctors and nurses came in to tell me that they had run out of options for Barbara.  I gave permission to take away all of the life support equipment that had kept her alive for the previous week and Barbara left me after I gave her a kiss.

I went out to the waiting room and knew that Barb had a plan for her funeral that was now to come into play.  I asked my cousin Ellen to call the funeral home and let them know about Barbara so that they could get things started on pulling what Barb had chosen so many many years before.  Brett, Karen and myself went to the funeral home the next day and went through things with the funeral director.  We ended up spending maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes there without having to make any serious decisions.  Those decisions had already been made.  Everything was paid for except the opening of the grave, as we were told it would be way back in 1982

Her is the thing concerning this.  It was supposed to make things easier for Barbara, not for me.  The fact is, again, that none of us knows what tomorrow brings.  Anything could happen at anytime.  You know, one of the things that went through my mind and continues to do so, is taking those wedding vows.  Back then it was before you wrote your own vows.  Dr. Wilson had a book of suggested vows that he shared with us as we prepared to get married.  In almost every single one of those vows was the line "Until Death Do Us Part".  I had heard that line in movies, in plays, and in real life at weddings and  I did not think about what it really meant.  It was something that was just said as part of the tradition and the ceremony.  "Until death do us part".  That concept, the idea of death ending your marriage when you are only 19 and 20 years old is such a foreign idea.  You don't think about that actually happening.  It won't happen.  It escapes your mind and you don't think about it.

It does happen though and you do not know when or where it will, but death will visit that marriage. Death visited our marriage and we have parted from each other on this earth.

And so I advise everyone that I can, every time the opportunity presents itself to let people know that one of the best things you can do for each other is to pre-plan your end of life requirements.  It takes so much pressure and stress away from the situation.  The decisions drop to just minor decisions instead of major ones.  It makes it a lot easier on the funeral directer as well.  That has to be a tough job being a funeral director.  Walking grief stricken families through the process of method of burial, purchase of caskets or urns, choosing a plot.  It takes a special person to carry out that job with caring and discernment.  Oh but how much easier it is when all of those decisions are made.  The funeral director can take time to talk and to listen to you about your partner who you have just lost.  They can have the strength to help you  and to comfort you.

Please, my dear readers.  For the sake of your loved ones give them this simple gift of not having to face the stress of making all of these difficult decisions when they are most vulnerable.  Pre-plan.

PREPARE.  Prepare for whatever lies down the road for you and those you love.  Whether it means paying yourself first before you pay your bills or preparing for the unthinkable, prepare.

Prepare, because none of us ever know what lies in store for us tomorrow.