"I need to accept you as you are," she said, "so you need to become the kind of person I can accept." I was becoming bewildered, but I don't think that's what she meant. "Life Insurance," she said. "You don't have any Life Insurance." "But we've only known each other three months. Aren't we jumping ahead?" "Look," she said, "I don't want to have to take my child and move back to Chicago and live with my mother. I don't want to have to take my child to a public clinic. And I don't want to have to ride you and nag you and ask you.

--excerpt from "Of Love and Life Insurance: An Argument" © Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.