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We finally put my dad& #39;s ashes to rest yesterday. It was a quick and small event (because, you know, the pandemic), but still nice. I& #39;m hopeful that we& #39;ll have a proper memorial at some point where everyone can share stories and hug without caution.
In the meantime, I wanted to share one story on here:
The last few years, I& #39;ve helped my parents with their tax returns. He was a doctor, so his income came from him submitting claims to insurance companies (which is as fun as it sounds).
The last few years, I& #39;ve helped my parents with their tax returns. He was a doctor, so his income came from him submitting claims to insurance companies (which is as fun as it sounds).
When I helped with his 2018 return, I was worried because his income was lower than normal. I figured he was getting older, slowing down, and probably working less. My mom (God bless her) told me he was working the same amount, but just didn& #39;t submit his claims that year.
Even if my mom was right, I didn& #39;t think that was the reason - how bad about submitting claims could he have really been? Dad was probably just slowing down in his 70s and, you know what, he was still making a decent amount of money for someone his age.
Either way, my mom made it her mission to make sure he would stay on top of his billing for the rest of the following year, 2019 (Again, God bless her).Well, I& #39;m working on his 2019 returns and it turns out my mom was very right (I admit that once a year, so enjoy that one, Mom)
My dad& #39;s income for 2019 was more than double 2018& #39;s, for pretty much the same amount of work. That basically means my dad worked all of 2018 for a 50% discount; a half pro-bono doctor, if you will.
I& #39;m still figuring out what to take away from this story. In some ways, don& #39;t be like my dad, right? Because my parents aren& #39;t rich and definitely could& #39;ve used the money. And people need money to exchange for goods and services blah blah blah...
But that was the type of person my dad was. Since he passed, friends and family have been talking about how humble, hard-working, caring, and selfless he was. It& #39;s interesting to have a number that quantifies that.
People took advantage of him at times, but he never really seemed to care. He always did what he thought was right, no matter who was watching or no matter what shitty hand of cards was dealt to him.
He knew there were things bigger than the trinkets that we all chase (even though sometimes those trinkets are legal tender and you need to exchange those trinkets to pay for electricity and water).