My grandfather died a month ago after a long struggle with a crippling cancer that made his last days sheer agony. He was a wonderful man and his loss was my first personal encounter with death. It was also my first personal encounter with insurance brokers. There’s a strange thing that happens when someone, especially someone who was a relatively high-profile public figure like my grandfather was, dies and I’m not just talking about passing from one realm to another or any of the strange procedures carried out by embalmers. First of all there’s a death notice that get published in the newspaper, and it gets listed in a column pretty close to another for funeral arrangements and another for insurance brokers and another for escort services. Everybody has something to sell these days it seems and very little shame about where and how they try to do that.

I was almost immediately inundated with phone calls and it all spiraled out of control when the paper published the details of my inheritance, having forgotten temporarily all about privacy laws it seems. I got phone calls from lawyers who wanted to write my will, which I found terribly insensitive in the circumstances, struggling entrepreneurs who wanted funding for vague and impossible ideas, and even a three year old girl who begged me to buy her a puppy. I said no of course. And then, interrupting the chaos, I answered the phone to hear the sweet melodious sound of my first of the insurance brokers. His name was James Dickity-Jones and I sensed an automatic allure calling me to accept his polite invitation to a country picnic after the funeral on Saturday. Oh yes, it appeared that James’s grandfather and mine had been the greatest of friends for decades so I knew I’d be safe.

The strangest weather greeted me when I woke that Saturday morning and presented enormous difficulties as to the correct choice of insurance broker, I mean funeral, clothes. It was intermittently raining cats and dogs, perhaps I should tell that pesky little girl to go and catch one, and as clear as a sunny day in Spain. To be honest the thought of the funeral made me want to slit my wrists, but I simply had to remind myself that I would be seeing my insurance broker there as well and I managed to pull myself together as the church grew closer and closer.

With the steps of the church in front of me I sighed a huge sigh as melancholy overcame me and I began to lose hope that my insurance broker would arrive at all that day. As I recalled fond memories of my father marrying my mother, his second wife, yes it was some years after my birth, in the same church, I felt a strong hand grasp my elbow. I responded by reflex, stamping my stiletto heel down hard on the foot of my beautiful insurance broker. As I looked into his eyes in the moment of his agony, I knew that this was the insurance broker for me; James was tough.

James never did learn not to approach me announced I’m glad to say and over the years we’ve visited that same church many times over, Our wedding, our second wedding, all marriages have their rough spots, and then the christenings of our eight beautiful boys. The triplets are having a joint wedding next month and everybody is very excited. Of all the things my grandfather left me, I am most grateful for my insurance broker.