The Rest of the Story.....

Damn…I got notice today that my $300,000 term life insurance policy is expiring.

It was 15 years ago when I bought this policy and I was denied life insurance because I had a badly inflamed liver.

It turned out that the medicine I was taking for epilepsy had by liver function and reading way off the chart. No one would insure me because I was going to be a dead man soon.

Well in a few shorts weeks I had the medicine changed and the issue was resolved. I didn’t die.

Realistically contemplating death at 36 changed my life.

At 36 I was a workaholic. I never took time off. I hated weekends and holidays because it kept me from the office.

I had been fired for insubordination just a year earlier so I had something to prove to myself.

But after the death scare I thought about my life thus far, I knew I was not ready or prepared to die. There was so much I wanted to see and do.

That year we took our first vacation as a married couple. I mean the first grown up not tagging along with the parents vacation. I rented a cottage at the beach and Gigi and I spent a week relaxing and playing.

Soon afterwards I bought a travel trailer so we could go about exploring the south. We would go out once a month to some new destination and we loved it. We visited about every coastal and mountain town within a 6 hour drive of Charlotte.

In 1997 we drove up to Maine and leisurely worked our way back down. We actually drove up I-95 on the way up. You could see New York skyline and Boscoe and Peaches saw the twin towers.

My work began involving air travel and I would take Gigi along. Soon we were exploring great cities like San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Phoenix, Chicago, New York, Washington, Albuquerque, and Dallas.

Then one day in early 2003 I took a trip with some other couples to St Croix and my love affair with the island began.

So now you know why I’m always mentally on vacation. Life is short. Go out and explore your world, meet friends and love each other.

Now let me see about replacing that policy……

3 comments:

Judy said...

great post.

Anonymous said...

So THAT'S how it all began!

I think my hubby could use a little death scare... he never slows down. Even when he's not working at work, he's working on something.

mr zig said...

great post... I've taken on the "enjoy life" philosophy a while ago - and I can't begin to express how "right" it is... And now with my whole job situation I fall into the trap of being a work-a-holic in the interm - but i've decided this free time is a gift, and i"m going to enjoy it! (and yeah, I will still work-just not as much) :)