This world of ours is mostly water. If you’ve never seen the movie Waterworld, with Kevin Costner, don’t bother. The film is not worth your time. Trust all the people on this. It only gets a “42% Liked” on Rotten Tomatoes. Or then again, maybe you are one of that 42%. But that isn’t the point.
The point is water. It covers 71% of our Earth’s surface. That doesn’t even include the great, great depths of the oceans. We live in a wet world.
While it happened a few weeks ago, we have a World Water Day. It was created to remind us of how lucky we are to have clean, drinkable water. And also to remind us how much of the world does not.
Fewer and fewer people on our planet, lack access to basic drinking water services each year, it seems. An incredible 772 million people still lack basic access to water, according to the United Nations. That is nearly one in eight people in our world. Imagine.
Water is life. For plants, for animals, for Earth. Unsafe water causes big problems for humans in the way of diseases like cholera, typhoid, and hepatitis A.
Believe it or not, unsafe water is a bigger cause of human death annually than natural disasters and war-type conflicts combined. Children especially are affected by these deadly water-found diseases.
The UN and WHO reported that the people who do not have water are predominantly located in Africa.
If you want more information or ways to help, their website has a multitude of resources: https://www.worldwaterday.org/
As I look at my life, I have to say that I have been more than fortunate when it comes to water. I’ve always had access to clean water from the moment I was born and every year since. We even belonged to a swimming pool, where we could dive into the crystal clear blueness of that water.
One of my favorite childhood memories was when I would play like crazy outside on a hot day, from morning to dusk. In the hottest heat, I’d go to our garden hose and turn the knob. Oh, another brief sidebar. I should note here that we did not have a garden or anything that resembled flowers, landscaping, or growing vegetation. Save for a few scrubby bushes in the front of the house, we were a barren land at 134 E. Bruce Avenue. In that way, we conserved water as we never, ever watered anything. Not even our scrappy lawn. For that reason, the garden hose should have been named something entirely different.
Okay, back to sweaty-kid-me at the not-so-garden hose. I would turn that knob, wait for a few moments until the hot water cleared from the hose, and then I would slurp and slurp that good cold water right from the bent metal end. I’d lean right into the spigot if the hose were not attached to the house.
It was so good.
And it was there, at my every whim. I didn’t have to think twice or walk sixteen miles with a bucket on my head, as so many other people in the world do.
At night I would get a shower, often under protest. But the clean, hot water rained down from above, washing the dirt of the day from my seven-year-old self.
It was a common, everyday thing to me. Yet what a beautiful gift.
Water is a gift. Every drop.
I didn’t know back then, but unsafe water was killing 200 other children every hour. But it did.
And it still does.
Today and every day, I hope we will all remember how precious the gift of water is. Every time we touch it.
Some day, it may not be there for us. And then we will really know.
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“In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.”
― Kahlil Gibran Jr.
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“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”
— Loren Eiseley.
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“Water is the driving force of all nature.”
— Leonardo da Vinci.
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The goods and bads of water
