"Preparing For the Future"

My wife and I had lunch with some friends of ours recently. As we talked the subject of preparing for the future came up. I was asked if I had cancer insurance - the answer is no. I was asked if I had assisted living insurance - the answer is no. I have life insurance and I have health insurance but any additional coverage for an uncertain future, I do not have.

I wonder if I will need those types of extra coverages. But I don't wonder or worry enough to get them. I guess I still feel young enough that I can do all that tomorrow. Or the day after that. Okay, I know it will get here sooner than I think but I just can't worry about everything. There has to be some truth in letting tomorrow take care of itself.

More than the expenses I worry about the toll it will take on my wife and children if they do have to take care of me during an extended illness. I know they will be loving and kind, or at least I hope they will. I do think that an extended illness is hard on the one doing the caring. It drains them and saps their strength.

Should I have to take care of my wife I hope I would do it with love and strength. I hope that the heart of our love would give me the right mindset to be caring and compassionate. I hope that is how I would be, because in truth I can be short tempered and impatient. Also I do not like to be around sick people. Hospitals depress me to no end.

It all goes back to my mother's illness. Her death was a long one. When I reached a point where I thought she could not get better, and people told me she could not, I wished for it to be over. And I knew she wished it too. In the end she was in a hospital and it was a cold, morbid place where the lights seemed to always be low, and shadows surrounded everything. I hated it. I hated being there. I hated what it represented.

I don't dwell on this part of my life very often. I choose to think of the good times at every stage of my life. I think happy thoughts breed happiness and sad thoughts breed sadness. That's childlike reasoning but it works for me.

So I go on with my life thinking tomorrow is going to be as good as today and maybe even better. I am an optimist. I deal with the bad things as they occur but I don't wait for them to happen. And I certainly don't spend my time waging wars against possibilities.

Prepare for the future? Only on a limited basis. I cover the necessities but not the worst case scenarios. Call me a blissful fool but it has kept me happy for a long, long time and I hope it will continue to do so for many years to come.

 

 

 

 

 

©2006 Jackie K. Cooper

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