“So”, the voice queries, “how rich are you?”

It is, for sure, the most stupid fucking question to ask.

Worse still that I should ask it.

Even worser (yes, I know it’s not good English – it’s a joke) that the question is in my head.

And the worst is that this is inside my head – me asking this question of myself but as if I were someone else asking – not me at all.

Normal. My normal.

This morning was nothing different. On the way to work. And then I thought:

“Actually, I am a trillionaire.”

No, I don’t have loads of money. Instead I have my life, my perfect flat in the perfect street, my dogs, F, health, enough money to live on comfortably, a full-time job, I live in Italy and more specifically, Milan, I have good friends.

Yes, for sure, I am a trillionaire.

And, then I go and read this:

September 14
Was a complicated day – tried to get my phone to get bars so
Zach could talk to Julie. Finally got bars – one.

Zach called her ‘mom’ He sounded like he had prepared all
his words for days – honest – thoughtful. Calling her ‘mom’
when he could not hear her.

Julie raised her head the most she had all day. Using all her
strength that kept her living to talk with her son. Repeating her
words… she trembled – touched her face. She tried so hard to
be there in the last moments for Zach.

Zach said, ‘Thank you for having me…’

He told her that his favorite time with her was when she kissed
him on his head – he wants to be with her and never wanted to
leave – he loved her…

About a mother, dying of aids, speaking by phone to the one of her children, this child having been taken away from her when it was born and then put up for adoption and then found by the photographer who recorded, by photographs, the last 18 years of the mother’s life.

Read/view it (and you should ……no you must) here.

It makes you want to cry. How can we call ourselves civilised? Someone made a point in the newspaper that the USA should get a proper healthcare system. But, actually, they’re wrong. I’m sure you could do a similar photograph-documentary in the UK or, for that matter, anywhere in the Western world. And, anyway, it’s not just the healthcare that isn’t up to the job. It’s the state and the relatives and the people involved. It’s everything and everyone, even the person themselves.

And so, it reinforced my thought this morning. I am a trillionaire.

And truly grateful.