My father refused to ever buy life insurance which puzzled and then terrified my mother. She lived in dread of his dying and of struggling to take care of her three children by herself. Perhaps because of that, I always thought of life insurance as one of the seminal responsibilities of the head of any household. And I never understood why my father, who could easily have afforded it, wouldn’t.
When I married Maria, an account told me the responsible thing to do was buy life insurance. I am older than Maria, and she was an artist struggling to do her work. Artists, like writers, do not have much in the way of safety nets. Maria almost violently resisted the idea of my buying life insurance. She viscerally hated the idea of betting against one’s own life with a corporation. She could take care of herself, she said, and would have the farm and other resources if I were to die unexpectedly. The insurance bill was steep – thousands of dollars for a man in his 60’s, and the insurance company didn’t like the fact that I didn’t see doctors much and didn’t have much of a medical testing trail for their actuaries to study. They offered me 10 years of insurance, and after that, the rate would more than double. Obviously, they think I’m good for a decade or so but would be more than that. The exam and paperwork were all understandably creepy. I thought it was worth it. I thought it was my responsibility. If I died, Maria would not have to worry about a mortgage, would have many choices. Much of the American terror of life I write about has been embedded in me, and digging it out is painful and eternal. I often feel as if I am jumping off a cliff blindfolded.
This week, the annual bill came, and I braced for my annual fight with Maria about insurance. I told myself to listen to her. This wasn’t me, she said. It wasn’t us. I thought about my frequent evocation of Thoreau. The American idea that I always loved was that you were free to live your own life, make your own choices, follow your own heart and feet. The new American idea is that you must need and fear many things, all of them involving giving money to corporations – mortgages, work, technology, health insurance, tuitions, old age, retirement, medications and surgeries.
And life insurance. It is, I had to admit, a cornerstone of the fear machine. Perhaps it make sense for others, or for people with small children. Or for my father. As Maria and I talked more and more about it, it stopped making sense to me. And how can you justify giving someone something they so clearly do not want? It was patronizing, Maria said. It was not something she wanted or needed.
So yesterday, after listening to her, a bulb went off in my head, and I proposed this: How about choosing life and not betting with a corporation on my own death? At our wedding, we vowed to choose life. It is what we are about.
How about I cancel the insurance policy and we take that money and to go Florence for two weeks instead? And every year after that, we take the thousands of dollars and go somewhere else we want to go? Going to Florence is something I know Maria would love to do. So would I. And yes, I know Maria can take care of herself. In my continuing pursuit of a self-determined and spiritual existence, giving thousands of dollars to an insurance company that wants me to live, but not too long, does not seem to fit anymore.
No more life insurance. I’m choosing life. We are going to Florence.