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| The Gauntlet |
I am not by nature a morbid person. I do not dwell on the evil in the world nor all the things that could go wrong in my life. But sometimes, you do have to look at some unpleasant realities. For instance...
The overwhelming number of people that die in any given year here in the US are my age or older. Just about 9 people out of 10 make it to my age, but then we start dropping like flies.
I have a better than 50-50 chance of dying of cancer or a heart attack. Chances are highly unlikely that I will die in an auto accident (less than a 2% chance), and almost no chance of being shot to death. Incidentally, nobody dies of old age. The people that are in charge of recording this type of information do not allow old age to be listed as cause of death. My mother, for instance, officially died of heart failure. She was 90 years old.
In terms of medical costs, the average person is expected to incur just over $300,000 in a lifetime on medical expenses, with about half of that amount spent after age 65. Of course this is per capita spending, so some people are going to spend less, some people more.
I don't know the exact amount that has been spent on my health insurance premiums over the last 30 years, but a rough estimate I'm sure would be $300,000. If I were to pay the current premiums for the next 30 years, it would amount to an addition $600,000. Of course we know that could never happen.
Just for the record, St. Joseph is the patron saint of happy and peaceful deaths. Legend has it that Joseph died in the presence of Jesus and Mary. His death was well before the public life of Jesus, as evidenced by Joseph's absence from scripture after the infancy narratives. It is also said in legend that this early death was granted to Joseph to spare him the torment of seeing his wife and his son suffer so greatly. Catholics believe that there is value in asking Joseph to intercede for us, to ask Joseph to request on our behalf that God grant us a peaceful death.
There is no patron saint of insurance that I am aware of.
When journalist Alexander Woollcott was starting out, he was assigned to the obit desk. He wrote the finest obituary he could, only to have it returned to him for a rewrite. His crusty old editor told him, "Not heart failure, dearie. We ALL die of that."
ReplyDeleteWell, one of my grandmother's first cousins was an absolute favorite of mine. Lilting Irish accent and a brilliant sense of humor. We were taking a meandering walk around her neighborhood escaping one of the larger rowdy clan gatherings and I asked how she was doing. She said okay but she had a stupid doctor. Concerned I asked what she meant. She said one of her older friends had just died to the doctor and the man asked what did she die of? Nora said, "I told you she was old!" Still makes me smile.
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