I have a birthday coming up, and it’s one of those “big” ones, given our affinity for round numbers: 65. In terms of social identity, it marks me as an official senior citizen, eligible for Medicare, Social Security, and the senior discount at the multiplex. Strangely, 65 doesn’t feel much different from 45; I get tired more easily, but I suspect that is due more to physical unfitness (hey, I’m working on that!) than to age. Otherwise, I’m pretty much the same as I’ve been, still reading, still writing, still making my children/grandchildren take their hats off indoors and eat with the right fork, still too likely to go for the sarcastic cheap shot rather than the thoughtful response (still working on that, too).
However, and perhaps this enters the realm of thoughtful response, I have recently been inspired by two pretty inspirational young people whom I’ve been lucky enough to know for most of their lives, Brian Warrick and Jasmine Lawrence, who probably don’t know each other [pause: Brian, Jasmine; Jasmine, Brian], and who both chose to use their birthdays as an occasion to raise money for Charity: Water. I’ve decided to follow in their footsteps.
As most of you know, I’ve been fortunate enough to live in a variety of places and to travel quite a lot -- 34 of the fifty states, central and eastern Canada, a couple of years in England, a few visits to France, several trips to Morocco – and never, ever, not once, was I unable to get a drink of safe, clean water whenever I wanted it. Now, a lot of that is because I was lucky enough to have been born in a wealthy democracy, but the rest of it is because, having been born in that wealthy democracy, I was never without the money to buy a bottle of safe, clean water if the local tap water might have been a bit dodgy. I need to remind myself to be grateful for this gift when 30,000 people on this planet, most of them children, die every week from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions. Charity: Water has a great website that explains everything far better that I can (see link below).
I did a little math – with the aid of a calculator, of course, before you all fall over laughing – and work out some numbers as donation suggestions. I think $65.00 might be a bit steep for a lot of my friends, but $6.50 is good, and 65 years works out to 23,740 days, so $23.74 is a possibility, and so is whatever else you might like to give. If you were thinking of getting me a gift, make this your gift to me – I already live in what most of the world would consider incredible luxury. If you weren’t thinking of getting me a gift – oh, what the hell, donate anyway because there are millions of kids out there who need a drink of safe water.
Thank you all for being my friends, thank you Brian and Jasmine for introducing me to Charity: Water, and God bless you all.