by Pat Grant

Created on: August 06, 2008

Life has a way of knocking you down when you least expect it. 1987 had started out as a decent year. My life was beginning to straighten out, my debts were smaller than they had been in a long time, and my brother had divorced his wife a couple years back, and was awarded full custody of his children (a good thing). I had moved back home, and we were all living with my father, in order to help my brother with his three small children. My brother had met a new lady and was seeing her. The kids liked her a lot and were beginning to call her "Mom." So, everything was looking good as 1987 began to reveal itself.

Then, in February, my father died. We never found out the full nature of what killed him. But we suspected it was related to his diabetes which he refused to admit he had, and therefore was not being treated for it. Stomach flu was going around and he caught it. The diabetes had probably left him in a weakened state making the flu worse for him than for us. He also happened to die on my oldest nephew's birthday. My nephew loved his grandfather, and was devastated.

All the arrangements fell to me, and I was astounded when we were unable to find any evidence of things such as death insurance on the house and things like that. He had been telling us for some time that if anything happened to him, we would be well taken care of. We were left with almost nothing, and had to move out of the house eventually. The one thing that did turn up was that my father had named me as his sole beneficiary for his life insurance. I was to receive the amount of $30,000.

At this point in time, I was 33 years old, working a minimum wage job, still somewhat in debt, and now facing a very dubious future. I should have hired an advisor of some sort. Instead, I used the money to pay off some bills, keep making payments on the house so we could live there until the bank took it back and forced us out, and did the same with payments on my Dad's car, which also got repossessed, all because my father had made no provisions for leaving any of these things to any of us. There was no will that we could find anywhere. As I look back, I realize this was all money just thrown away. I also used some of it to take a dream vacation to California, and to buy a few items that we wanted. The money went fast.

If I had it all to do over, I would do things much differently. I would invest about half of the money into an IRA or something like that. And I would have used the rest to relocate myself and my brother. At the time I held a degree in theatre and had strong interest in working in the film industry. I never pursued that because there were always "bills to pay" and "it would wait." I should have let the bills wait and pay them off a little at a time, and used the remainder of the money to move out to California and go to film school, and perhaps pursue an internship with some film company.

Of all the choices I have made in my life, this is the one I regret now the most. Had I taken "the other road" my life would be vastly different than it is now. On the other hand, I have many experiences that would never, or probably never, have happened and friends I would have never met. But in the long run, I would have made other friends and had other experiences. Who knows, in the end, which path would have been best? At least, had I made the other choice, I would be able to say that I tried, and took the chance. Something I cannot do now.

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