Dearest Rachel –
There are some things that were a part of your personality, certain likes and dislikes, that were on the periphery of my perception, that I often forget to comment upon in these letters to you. It’s not so much an oversight on my part, since I barely was able to notice them in life; I think these were things you spent more time on during my absences, such as when I was at work. Your love of horror movies has come up recently in your studies, because you questioned whether they (and the time you spent on them) were sinful, but there were other pursuits that I tend to forget as well, since you rarely engaged in them in my presence (or, if and when you did, it was while I was otherwise engaged, such as while driving). As a result, while they were a part of your life – even a fairly major one, given the time spent on them – I don’t know how to comment upon them, let alone create an entire essay on them.
But I was reminded of one of several of these pursuits this past weekend, and thought I might bring it up as it occurred to me, if only because of the ironic reason that prompted you initially to engage in them. To be sure, they eventually became just something you did for fun in certain down times just because you liked doing them, but there was more behind them than that at first.
Anyway, my recollection was piqued by a mail delivery late last week that I haven’t had time to bundle off and put in the recycling bin just yet. We still get a regular newsletter each month from the Illinois Farm Bureau as part of our membership with them:
Of course, the fact that we do is a spot of irony in itself; we aren’t farmers, of course, nor did either of us come from any farming tradition. We are part of the cooperative in order to be eligible to have our home insured by Country Companies. This bit of irony comes from the fact that Country wasn’t our first insurer; while I won’t name names, our initial home insurance policy was covered by the same folks who insured your life, way back when (and if memory serves me correctly, we got a discount for bundling the two at first). The trouble is that, during the first five years we owned the place, we made several claims for damage to the place, due to minor flooding and tree damage. After the third such incident, they decided we were too much of a risk and dropped us like a bad habit, forcing us to seek insurance elsewhere (since it’s required by law to have for things like homes and cars and health these day; as I understand it, insurance used to be a form of legal gambling, where you could take your chances that you wouldn’t need it, but that’s not an option these days). Country was willing to provide us with a policy, but required us to become part of the Illinois Farm Bureau in order to become eligible; a nominal fee that, even as relatively young marrieds, was of little financial concern for us – certainly nothing compared to the cost of the policy itself, which was at least comparable to our previous insurer.
As for said previous insurer, though, the joke was on them, since we’ve not had to submit a claim in the twenty-plus years we’ve had our policy with Country. If they had stuck by us after our third claim, they could have kept getting payments year after year from us, and more than recouped their losses on the picayune stuff we submitted back in the day. As it is, Country has profited from their loss, while they proceeded to get soaked by us a second time after your accident. Which is another touch of irony; we had been just about to let the life insurance policy on you lapse, since the premiums were set to skyrocket once you reached fifty-one years of age (after all, the policy was meant to allow me to pay off the remainder of our mortgage, but the house was already ours free and clear after your folks passed it on to us, there wasn’t a good reason to keep it up; at least that’s one facet of insurance we’re still allowed to gamble on whether we want it or not)
Anyway, you’ll forgive me all of these digressions, but everything leads down another rabbit hole that I feel the need to point out, both for the sake of my own memory and in case it interests or amuses those reading this over your shoulder, as long as I’m giving the background as to why we receive this Co-Operator newsletter in the first place.
Frankly, I don’t know if we ever did anything with it, apart from the fact that you kept it to go through the word search puzzle:
Prior to Jan’s going through the place, you stacked up quite the pile of these newsletters, much like the comic pages from when we used to get newspapers (and later, when we let our subscriptions run out, from the papers your folks continued to subscribe to). Granted, they didn’t stack up nearly as fast at a rate of one per month, and on the various lengthy road trips we would take (to Tennessee to see Kevin, or to the island, or to AnimeIowa), you would burn through them fairly quickly when you had a mind to do so, but there were a few that you left behind at the time of your accident.
And that, of course, is the final irony of it all. These sort of word puzzles, along with the various sudoku books you collected throughout your last decade or so, were intended as a brain exercise, so that you wouldn’t suffer the same precipitous mental decline that your mother and grandmothers endured in their final years. Your genetic history suggested that your mind would go at least a decade before your body – would it be overstating things to say that you feared that future? In any event, these were a (reasonably) fun way to stave that off – for what it’s worth, my dad does a lot of word search puzzles himself, presumably for the same reasons.
But then, it turns out that they weren’t necessary for you in the end; you ran out of time long before you lost the use of any of your faculties, either mental or physical. If this was only meant as a means to keep your mind sharp, you may have wasted your time. Then again, if you enjoyed working them, I guess it’s not nearly so much of a waste. But it still leaves me thinking about you when I come across these things, honey.
Anyway, I’m going to get on with my day for now. Keep an eye on me, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 