Last Friday didn’t get off to the best of starts, and technically the drive home didn’t end on a good note either.
You see, I arrived early morning at the Steenberg Virgin Active gym like I always do and as I proceeded to swipe in, I was asked to please stick to the one side of the gym as they were currently dealing with a medical emergency on the other side. There on the lower level, down the left hand side of the pool a number of screens had been put up and you could see a number of paramedics working on someone lying down on the ground. Twenty minute or so later, the foil sheets were pulled up, police arrived and a bodybag made its appearance.
You see, as Chantelle later confirmed via a newspaper article, a middle-aged man had succumbed to a rather unexpected heart attack while swimming laps.
This got me then thinking about how death really can strike at any time and now with all my family responsibilities, I really do need to make better preparations for that possible eventuality. After all, now that I have a child on the way and something was say to happen to me, how would my wife be able to cope financially, never mind emotionally and everything else that comes with an unexpected death?
So what does this mean?
Well for starters, it does mean that I really should start looking after myself a bit better. I’m one of those “if I don’t know about it then I don’t have to worry about it” sort of blokes and as such have no idea of my current health status other than the rather informal “I feel fine” verbal test. Maybe, just maybe I guess I need to start forming some sort of relationship with a healthcare practitioner sooner than later, something I’m pretty sure Chantelle will be pretty wild about! :)
More importantly than that, I do now have to look into things like life insurance policies and the like, because quite frankly, I really don’t want to sit with a situation where if I pass away my wife and child are dropped into absolute poverty or something like that. Of course, this means a bit of legwork from my side, and also leaves me with a question or two which I guess I’ll have to make time to find the answer to.
Sigh, all these extra things to think of and plan for now that one has padded themself with a family!
But responsibility is good and providing for is one of the things that makes a man a man and for that I am pleased to be in the process of building up the next generation Lotter family.
But it wasn’t good starting the day witnessing the life of a man ebb away after something as trivial as swimming a lap in a pool. Nor was it good to witness another man lying dead in the road after being knocked down by a car on my way home…
I won't lie, the desire to continue my morning gym session was not particularly strong after the incident.