LIFE Lessons – Essay Category First Runner-Up
Binghamton University
Hometown: Port Jervis, NY

Growing up, my family was on welfare. We didn’t have much when it came to money but I had my family and that was what was most important to me. Neither of parents had any life insurance because my mom was a stay at home, there were four of us all one year apart, and my dad had tried to become an electrician but wasn’t succeeding when it came to the test. Because he was trying to get into the electrician field, he didn’t have a job that offered much in the way of insurance. They could have taken out their own life insurance but we were already hard-pressed for money because every cent my dad made was needed to support us all. Life insurance was not something that seemed so important at the time.

As a six year old kid, I didn’t know the lack of life life insurance was one day going to become a problem. I found out it would be a problem much sooner than I expected. On April 19,1995 my brothers and I went downtown to leave my parents alone while they discussed “adult things”. They were about to get a divorce and were trying to sort some things out. When my brother David and I returned home, it was locked for some reason. We eventually found our way inside and what we found forever changed the lives of my brothers and myself. We found my parents dead in my brother’s room. My father took the life of my mother and them himself. It’s a sight I wish I could forget.

From there, my brothers and I moved in with our maternal grandparents. We got lucky that we didn’t have to go into foster care. Everything was okay growing up for the most part. College has brought a new challenge into my life. I am realizing now that college is very expensive. Although my grandparents took care of my brothers and I for about ten years, they were only able to do so with money the state gave them. My grandma had to work extra hard just to support my three brothers and I; imagine going from an empty nest to a home full of young children. Financing college was out of the question. Because I knew I had to pay for college, I made the decision to make sure that I chose a school that fell under the SUNY (State University of New York) status to avoid a large tuition. I am currently attending Binghamton University and although the tuition is not as much as other schools, I am finding myself in a large amount of debt.

I think that if my parents had life insurance, my financial situation for college would be better. I of course would rather have my parents here than all the money in the world but being that the situation is what it is, it’s hard supporting myself through college. My grandma does what she can to still help me but in the end she can’t help with my largest expense: tuition. Also, I would not be so worried about attending further schooling to get my MSW if I was more financially stable.

The due date of this essay is so close to the anniversary of my parent’s passing that it made me realize how the death of my parents is only going to get harder as I get older.  It’s almost been thirteen years and I still have many, many years to live.  I realized when I graduated high school and didn’t have my parents there that they wouldn’t be at my college graduation either, or my wedding or the birth of my children.  This emotional strain is hard enough but to put financial strain on top just makes it that much worse.  I have learned that no one is ever too young to get life insurance especially if they have children.  The choice to get life insurance versus not could make all of the difference in the world to the surviving family members.

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