Jokes about death (and why life insurance matters)

Our youngest daughter shares her middle name with Phil’s sister, who died when she was four weeks old. Now this sounds sentimental, and really for the most part it is, except that Phil has also trained our 5 year old to recite her name with the tagline, ‘I’m named after my dead aunty.’ Very cute.

I married into a family who are very (very) comfortable talking about death. And not just talking, but really, making jokes about death. While Genavieve Skye is grieved for and tears shed over often, she has also become a joke factory for the slightly irreverent family. Seeing as Genavieve is a Thompson, I’m presuming she would be laughing along just as much as the rest of the family.

This comfortability with death was something I needed to get used to, quickly. Was it really okay to laugh about the death of a four week old baby? And make jokes about an uncle (Dr Death was the term so affectionately coined to him) who had two wives die tragically of cancer? I guess so! It was a steep learning curve for me, but it did allow something spectacular to happen. I became more comfortable with death. It allowed me to see that those who have lost loved ones want nothing more than for them to be talked about. For people to remember them, not allow them to be forgotten at the back of stiff memories collecting dust.

It has also meant that Phil and I have become very comfortable talking about our future and what our plan would be if either of us were to die (there’s excel spreadsheets and everything, it’s a big deal). At our ripe old ages of 34 and 33, we are now entering into the life stage of hearing sentences like ‘she was only…young kids too’ and ‘he was so fit and healthy, I can't believe it…’ these words come with a heavy price tag, and it is all too tragic to be unable to offer much more than platitudes and a meal. Being the wife of a financial planner has also trained me to think ‘I wonder if they had life insurance.’ I know it may seem insensitive, but the practicality of being educated and unoffended enough to put life insurance in place when you think you don’t need it can provide a great deal of relief if the tragic event does happen.

I hope that all the money Phil and I are spending on life insurance goes into a great big pit of ‘well, we never needed that.’ But really that’s the best outcome isn’t it? The one that affords us the privilege of having peace of mind while still being around for all of those mundane, run of the mill family moments that feel like nothing special until you realise they mean everything when someone you love can’t be there anymore.

Phil and I often joke about the ‘sweet, sweet cash’ we would have should one of us die, and while we know it would never make up for losing your partner (naw) it would give us freedom to take our time to grieve, and process, and just be there with our kids, without having to worry about the mortgage repayments or the groceries.

If you die, let your family make you the butt of jokes about death, not the stress of financial strain (Spoken in loving kindness I assure you).