A Little Bit Morbid...

Getting in to bed last night...

"Alexa what is 4 divided by 7?"

"Four divided by 7 is .5714."

....

Brent: "Well that was random. Do I want to know?"

Me: "Probably not."

.....


When I was born my parents took out a life insurance policy on me. I hadn't thought about it in years. As my brain is working through all of the THINGS in there right now this little tidbit rose back to the the top.

I can't remember how old I was when I realized I had a life insurance policy on me but I do know when I realized that most kids didn't. It came up with a friend in high school. We were talking about a man who had just been arrested for the murder of his wife. One of the stupid things he did was take out a life insurance policy on her like 3 months before he killed her. Like something out of a poorly written TV movie. We were trying to decide how far in advance you could buy a new policy before you killed someone and not make it suspicious.

Their belief was never. That there was no point where a life insurance policy wasn't suspicious. And I was shocked, their parents didn't have one out on them? And then it was their turn to be shocked. Mine did? Why? I was very matter of fact and said that it wasn't for much really, basically enough to cover funeral expenses, maybe a little more by now.

They thought it was really morbid.

And I guess in a way it was. But it was mostly just practical.

When I was born, looking at their history with kids my parents had a 50/50 shot of me living past childhood. Fifty fifty. My birth (and making it to 18) tipped the percentage of kids living to adulthood to roughly 57%. Unless you count the miscarriage Mom had between Jeff and Susan and then we are back down to 50%. But even my devout completely anti-abortion mother did not view her miscarriage in the same way as she did her two daughters that died short after birth and especially not how she viewed her son that died at 6.

At one point in time they were going to turn the policy over to me when I turned 18. My guess is that they either cashed it out or had stopped making payments on it or had lost it before that. They weren't in a place to give money away right around then so cashing it out or stopping payments on it would both make sense. I don't really know which one. But the good news (for me!) is that they didn't need to use to it bury another child.

I pushed those survival rates to more than half. Go me!

Odd little things like this form my view of the world. A world where you have insurance policies on infants. Where when you are vacationing in Iowa you stop and have a picnic lunch in the cemetery with your brother and sisters. Where the only pictures you have of your two oldest sisters are from their funeral, and it's just the coffins. Where when it's time to have your own children you have to explain to your husband that the frilly white bassinet looks like how they set up a child's coffin for the funeral and you'd really rather not. Where discussions about your dead siblings make you feel like they are a part of your life even though they died long before you were born.

It's kind of morbid. But it's also not. It's very practical. I'm not afraid of dying. It is a thing that happens to all of us. Young, old, inbetween; accidents, health, unexplained unknowable reasons. It's going to happen. And it was part of growing up for me. The knowledge that it was coming. And that it was okay.

Because that was the overall lesson about death when I was growing up. That it was all okay. Now, yes, that was because it was part of their religious belief. Heaven was on the other side. That was something to look forward to. My mother talked about being reunited with the girls and Mark and then after Dad died with Dad as well. It was a reunion she was looking forward to. It's something my siblings talk about now. That they are all reunited now and that someday they too will join the rest of the family.

Not me. I don't think that way. But when I left the religion I didn't leave my general okayness around death. It was too far ingrained in who I am. It's coming for all of us. So worrying about dying doesn't make sense to me. I just don't view it the same way. I don't see a glorious reunion with family and friends who have gone before me. Honestly I'm not sure what happens, but I don't have any memory of what came before I was born and that doesn't scare me so why should what comes next?

But still, as I was thinking yesterday that number kept popping in my head. Four out of seven births lived to adulthood. Four out of eight pregnancies. Even growing up with it, even knowing it, sometimes it hits me in a fresh way.

No wonder my fiction is 50% ghosts.

It's how I was raised.

"Do I want to know?"

"Probably not."