In A Flash
Do you ever pay attention to the odd, random thoughts that pass through your mind? I mostly just hope no one can read mine! Odd stuff, our minds. So in an emergency situation, do you think your mind would go into an automatic “deal with it” stance and you would know exactly what to do? I'm sure we'd all like to think so, but the truth is probably quite different.
This topic was addressed recently in my conversation with another financial representative in Alabama. She showed me a letter written to her by one of her clients. The story is powerful enough that I wanted to share it. Here are her words:
August 28, 2015. My itinerary for the day: work, our daughter's guitar lesson, a Friday night football game and, finally, rest for the weekend. But life doesn't always follow our itinerary.
Our two daughters (11 and 9) and I were heading home after guitar practice, driving down a small gravel road, which I travel every single day, when one of my tires hit loose gravel. I lost control of the car. There was no reaction time.
The car shot across the road and slammed into a grove of trees. My 9-yearold daughter, whose arm was fractured from the crash, pulled her sister and me both from the car to protect us, and to tend to our injuries. I knew I was badly hurt. Disoriented and scared, I didn't know if I was going to survive. And in that moment, as would seem natural, I thought of my family.
What would happen to them if I didn't make it? Could my husband raise three kids alone with his travel-heavy job? Images of everything I would miss flashed through my mind: school assignments, proms, college visits, weddings. How would my husband afford to handle everything?
And then just as quickly, into my head popped the image of you, our financial representative. I thought of the extra life insurance we had just purchased and knew our family would suffer no financial hardship, regardless of what happened to me. You might not think things like this come up in a moment of panic, but they do. They'll sneak into your head whether you want them to or not. And as I began to make sense of the situation, the flash of relief knowing my family would have my life insurance money was priceless.
It's Barbara again… I know I talk about life insurance frequently. Folks, it's critical for anyone who has debts or who has anyone for whom he/she is responsible. (It's also a wise plan for anyone who just wants to leave a legacy, but that's another column.) Just imagine this woman's feelings and mental state if she'd been lying there on the side of that road, wondering if she was going to live or die, while also being crushed by the guilt of knowing she was leaving her family in a mess. I have seen it happen that way, and it's a head-shaking moment when you think, “This was avoidable.”