I was walking towards McDonalds the other night as I was going to pick up something for my mother and myself when a tall, slightly bent-over gray-haired man, I would guess in his early 80s, stepped out in front of me a car-length away. I followed him all the way into McDonalds where we both got in line.
As we waited, I saw him pull out his wallet, look through it and pull out some money. I don't know what it was but at that moment I had hoped that this man had enough money to buy what he went for and immediately felt like I wanted to give him some money for a burger. When he did get to the counter, while I hadn't heard what he ordered, I saw him dig deep into his pockets for some change. He paid the young woman at the counter, turned around, holding an ice cream and proceeded over to one of the tables and sat down to enjoy the small treat.
As I started my drive up to my mother's, it hit me . . . I could be that person someday. I already have the white hair, dyed currently a medium brown, and I'm going on 67 this year. The early 80s is not that far away. I couldn't help but wonder more about that man and what his life had been like when he was younger; what he worked at, how much his social security check was, was he a widower, etc.
While I will never know the answers to these questions, it did make me stop and think about my life and while for the most part, I am content with it, I do find myself worrying about whether I will have enough money to last me the rest of my life. I'm pretty confident that I will, but I doubt that I will ever take that for granted as despite all the planning there are so many variables, I can only live one day at a time and hope that I will be OK.
