VIDEO: Bottle banned

VIDEO: Bottle banned

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the man behind the curtain

H's home bothers me so much. He lives with his daughter and his grandson (grandson is probably my age) in an apartment in raleigh, but no-one really lives in that apartment except H. There are still boxes everywhere... long since unpacked, but just empty and cluttering up the space. Opened and unopened envelopes scatter the floor around each place to sit- the chair, the sofa, the computer desk. Its mail half attended to.
The place is just so cluttered and stale. Its not a place to live, or die. And yet he is dying here. And dying alone. His grandson left yesterday to go back to California, so now H lives at home alone all day while his daughter is at work. He is mostly blind and in poor enough health to be on hospice. But, he would rather have it this way than to be in a nursing home. "Absolutly NO nursing home!" He is insistant. Can't say I really blame him at all. I would probably be the same way.

But I hate that its not more of a home. California is actually home for him, and he longs to go back, but he is too sick to travel. I wish he was in a place with a giant recliner and pictures of a life well lived all over the wall. Instead its just cardboard boxes. I broke a lot of them down today and hung his clothes up in the closet. I made his bed and brought him an ice-cold coca cola. And he asked to sit in the shower. When his wife died a few years ago, he said he had the hardest time sleeping. So he would get up in the middle of the night, 2am, and run a bathtub full of water and soak in the tub until morning. "the Sorrow would diffuse out of my skin, into the warm bathwater, and go down the drain" he said, "at least for a little while." "And right now, I am just so sad." he told me.
So we pulled a plastic chair in the shower for him to sit on. (sitting him down into the bathtub is pretty impossible for him right now) and filled warm water up around his ankles and sat with the shower water running over his head, his face, down his back and body. He sat in the shower for almost a full hour (How the water was hot that long I will never know). The water-conscious person in me cringed a bit, (scott harrison would have my head) but the hospice employee won out- "whatever makes him feel better". I sat on the toliet with the seat down as he sat in the shower, and we talked through the shower curtain for an long while about everything.. race, life, love, education, regrets. And then for awhile we both just sat, with the sound of water running, rinsing away the weight of the sorrow. at leaste for a little while.

cancer, child soldiers, water, homeless....but mostly water

This last weekend was crazy and went a little like this:

Fri: overnight in garner with Relay for Life
Sat: slept all afternoon, camp-out on the capital lawn with Invisible Children
Sunday: church in chapel hill to hear Scott Harrison, founder of charity:water speak, nap, the gathering, hurricanes game
monday: back to durham for work and then another lecture by scott harrison.

and so now water is on my mind. and service. and causes. but mostly water.
it seems like such a simple thing, clean water. and it seems to fix so many problems. well its a least a freakishly large step in the right direction.

Scott is a pretty captivating guy. His story is amazing and his vision for charity:water is equally so. He has really taken the water crisis in the developing world personally and has made it the vision of charity:water to get 1% of the 1.1 billion people who don't have water, clean, clear water. And then once they have tackeled the 1%, charity:water is going to take on 10%. I couldn't help but get caught up in the romance of the whole thing. I want to be a part of changing the world in such a measurable, practical way too! I bought my $20 dollar bottle of water already and have been seriously thinking about buying a case to hand out for birthdays, and other required gifts. what is better than giving the gift of water??!! I hear shannon's voice in my head right now.

I was telling Chris as we were walking back from "the gathering", that out of all the service events we went to this weekend, charity:water was the most captivating, and ironically enough, the one that I have potentially the most influence in just by sheer lack of other people to spread responsibility around with, the gathering, is the one I am least romanced by. I participate and i am at every meeting, but I very often wonder "why" exactly. And part of that is most certainly because the rewards are not as easily measured. I can't just help build a well in DTR and see within three weeks thousands of people who didn't have water, now drinking crystal clear water. The needs are a lot muddier then that not to mention the solutions. As phenomenal as"clean water" works as a metaphore, figuring out what "clean water" actually is and how to go about "digging a well" is not quite as easy nor as tangible or measureable. I am sure Hugh runs into this a lot. I do kind of wonder if it is possible to streamline it somehow in a way that targets more tangible, practical solutions. But, again, I have no idea what that looks like in a relational service.

so i think it is important to get your hands somehow in both. do something streamlined and practical. do water. and then get your hands and feet in the muck of people and the insolvable problem. water keeps you reminded and encouraged that solutions are out there... and the immeasurable labryinth of relationship building reminds you why we need clean water in the first place. well. thats what i think anyway.

and in the meantime, invisible children are still camped out in chicago, 5 days into the "rescue", and i am two days away from a 60 mile bike ride that i havn't trained for and that i don't yet have a bike to ride. hmm.