I was watching a show on PBS the other night about a family in Turkey that had children who were incapable of walking upright; they walked on their hands and feet. The children ranged in age from the early 20s to the mid 30s and had never had a medical evaluation until the researchers showed up to learn about them. My partner and I started talking about how access to medical care for them could have made a world of difference to their walking ability. Here in the US, if a child wasn’t walking by say, 18 months, there would have been all kinds of tests, physical therapy, etc. (provided the parents could afford it or had good health insurance.) But that also started me thinking about so many things we take for granted in most of the country. (There are parts of the US that are like Third World countries: no running water, no electricity, no access to medical care. But if you have the ability to read this, you probably don’t live in one of those areas. ) We have reliable electricity; clean water; reasonably inexpensive ways to heat and cool our homes; dependable access to food; relatively inexpensive fuel for our cars. Well, I think you get the picture. There have been so many times I didn’t even think about how electricity gets to my home when I flipped on a light switch; or I have turned on the faucet without ever thinking about how my water is cleaned and sent to my house. There are so many things I take for granted; that my partner will be here waiting for me when I get home from work; my pets will be happy to see me; my kids and grandkids will call me often just to say hi, and on and on.
What do you take for granted?