Years before becoming a nurse, wife and mother I tried my hand at selling insurance. I was an absolute horror. When people said no I didn't have that inate skill that great insurance agents and other door-to-door salesmen have. The ability to turn no into yes. I think it's called the Power of Persuasion. So to drum up some business I harrassed my friends endlessly. I was in my early twenties and thought friends and acquaintances would be sure fire ways of getting new business.The only problem was...the type insurance I was selling. I worked for a company that sold burial insurance. And like a wise old man once told me - people don't actually realize their own mortality until their mid twenties or later. So, when my friends would see me coming with my briefcase and cute little notebook chugged full of photos of the latest and most sleekly designed caskets, the closest exit was the direction they were headed.
Fast forward to nearly twenty years later. By now I think those same people including myself are realizing just how mortal we are.
I've had the misfortune of losing childhood friends due to circumstances beyond their control - car wrecks, shootings, etc. But when you begin to lose people in your own age group because of things like heart disease, diabetes, kidney failure...it's an eye opening experience.
Just this past week a young man that was only a few months older than I am died after having a massive heart attack. Oh my God have I actually reached the point in life were news of a person only 40 years old dying becomes a realistic part of life as opposed to the shocking news it would have been if the same thing had happened to him twenty years ago?
Is it time to start scanning the obits to see if anyone I know has shaken off the cloak of mortality? The whole thing has been a very sobering experience to say the least.
