A Country Bumpkin Offering Sunshine

The Caucasian lady was sitting on her walker(with two wheels) in front of the UPS store we rent a mail box at. I thought she was our customer who scheduled a pickup and check with her. She was not our customer. We chatted a little. She was curious about our home business. I never feel comfortable to sell our services to a stranger unexpectedly. She was not happy with our prices because of the money shortage, which I totally understand. Our home business is nothing to do with food or any necessary things a person must have on the daily basis.

I was still waiting for the customer to show up and thought in my mind: Why not? I can listen to her. She said it's hard to be a poor senior. All her welfare checks from the government were for groceries, and there was no money left for anything else. The classical records she had were given from a friend. A suggestion of buying cheap CDs didn't sound very bright, I didn't know what else to say. She sipped her coffee and sighed. I sensed she needed someone to talk to, but I also noticed the customer was there. I had to cut her conversation off. A sadness attacked me - I pictured myself becoming her 20 years later.

There is always a tremendous worry of mine for not being able to save money while I am still younger. This lady got me think if I should just do whatever bringing me a little wage to prevent being miserable while I am old. My big problem is I cannot keep a job for long and spend too much time to find the next one. Maintaining a steady job is very crucial for saving money, unless I must be specially talented than the average people, which all the evidences have shown that I am definitely very ordinary. Gee, how selfish I am to think about my own aging. What about the senior lady? Who is going to let her feel better now? I am certainly not the right person.

Another senior example is more inspiring but some how sad too. T is a warehouse senior supervisor I just met in July. While I heard that he is already 73 years old and has worked at the same warehouse for 40+ years, I was in shock. First, he doesn't look like a 70 something years old. My own father who died from multiple cancers almost 12 years ago would be around his age now. T reminds me my father. Second, is it safe to work at the warehouse after being more than 70 years old? I try to avoid any chance seeing T lift heavy stuff. However, it is impossible. On Wednesday, T lifted a very heavy wood-made table on his own(I helped) and moved around a more than 150 pounds sofa bed with a warehouse teammate. I stood there and felt helpless for not being able to help much. It is like seeing my own father lifting heavy things while he was supposed to rest and enjoy his retirement with grandkids or something.

People at the office think he should be retired. I can only guess he needs this job to keep him alive and active, but there must be some reason more serious than keep himself active, his wife. I was told his wife is very ill and needs a lot of medical attention and T has diabetes. T must maintain his health insurance through the company. Imagine how many people work over their age for health insurance, especially among the blue collars. Damn stupid American health insurance system!! I am not very familiar with American senior welfare and health care system. There are federal Medicare and Medical in California, I guess. I heard Medicare and Medical don't provide very good quality health care and cure. Maybe, that is why T needs to keep employed and get the commercial health care coverage.

The greatest fear of mine living in US is health care. We are basically doomed if we don't either earn a lot money through our self-employment or work for more generous cooperations. There are lots of small businesses or medium-sized companies don't provide employee health insurance benefits. I cannot see myself or my husband working for more generous cooperations. It doesn't work for our personalities. I don't want to think farther. It could not be pretty when we got old if we kept our life style as it is now. Thank goodness, we don't have any kids, which ease my financial stress a lot. I cannot raise kids while I have to worry about rent, food... all those basic things. Although I admire people who raise kids with very little or no money at all, I simply don't want to do so. It is already too stressful for being a parent. Lack of money will kill my passion of being a parent. My parents certainly saved money and raised three kids with not wealthy but very stabilized family income. I feel very blessed for my parents' efforts.


(How beautiful the sunset is!! It is also the evening toward the end of a day.)