I'd like to rewrite that glorious song that John Lennon sang so beautifully. Imagine. Imagine. Really do it, sweet Ellie. Really imagine a world where things make sense.
I had the privilege of being born into a world without AIDS. A world without the horrors and the 40 million orphans and the children too old for orphanages who have to sell their bodies on the streets. For food. So they get AIDS and die a quiet death alone where no one even notices. When I was young, unsafe sex maybe got you pregnant or, at worst, got you a disease that made you sterile. Sterile has nothing on dead.
Yet another thing to try to explain to my daughter. And I don't know what's harder to explain:
Why women and children are dying in alarming numbers
or
Why we don't do anything about it
God. It's so hard to be a parent on days like this. In worlds like this.
But it's the most amazing, awe-inspiring, and humbling privilege ever. So, sweet Ellie. Yes. You were born into a world with AIDS. But maybe, just maybe, someday you will live in a world without it.
Happy World AIDS Day, sweet baby girl.
