Moving to Cox from Century Link

I'm a long time user of Century Link internet service. I'm transitioning to Cox internet with installation scheduled for 10 days from now. I expected to have a cox.net email account/address as part of my new service but apparently that is no longer provided. What am I supposed to do? I assume my Century Link email will not work after I cancel service there. Am I supposed to use my gmail address? I want to use the Apple Mail application for all my email on my Mac, my iPhone, and my iPad and not webmail.