Sherry Price knew that. Her husband, Daryl, is a police officer. With three children, Sherry sometimes worried what she would do if something happened to him in the line of duty.But when she and her family went around that turn in their lives and faced tragedy, it wasn’t Daryl they lost. In the span of eight weeks, their lives were ravaged by something they never could have imagined.
And when it was over, Sherry’s family learned what she always knew - that life insurance offers support when you face the unexpected.
A secure future
Sherry and Daryl, of Erwin, Tenn., met in 1983. She paid her brother, who was a police dispatcher, $20 to arrange a lunch date between her and Daryl.
“She didn’t need to do that,” Daryl says, laughing at the memory. “She was beautiful. She could’ve just used that money to pay for lunch!”
The first time they spoke on the phone, they talked for four hours. They married seven months later.
Early in their marriage, Sherry purchased life insurance certificates for herself and for Daryl through her Modern Woodmen representative Marilyn Colyer-Neece.
“Life insurance was something that mattered to her,” Daryl says. “She believed in it.”
An unexpected turn
On Easter 2009, Sherry noticed her Easter hat was rubbing against a bump on her temple.
A few weeks later, the bump was painful to the touch. In May, a dermatologist performed a biopsy on the bump.
The doctor said the growth was malignant. Sherry underwent a PET scan that showed red all over her body, which meant there were a multitude of abnormal spots.
The cancer had metastasized.
The final weeks
As swiftly as they had found out about the cancer, Sherry’s symptoms worsened. Her energy depleted and her body ached. The cancer caused a heart attack. Sherry battled one round of chemotherapy, but her body lost strength.
On July 13, after two weeks in the hospital, Sherry passed away.
The days that followed Sherry’s death were a blur. In all of the chaos, Daryl didn’t have to worry about money. The life insurance covered the funeral expenses and allowed Daryl to put money aside for emergencies.
The road ahead
The months that have passed since Sherry’s death have been difficult ones. Daryl says it’s his children who have kept him keep going.
He and his family have created a new routine to try and fill the void left by Sherry. It isn’t easy to move forward without her, but he finds comfort knowing there’s money to take care of his family.
“She knew how important life insurance was,” Daryl says. “She took care of us. She knew that you couldn’t always know what was coming around the next turn.”