Last year a young lady from Unicef marched boldly up to our door on a quiet but cold evening and asked for a donation.
I was a contractor at the time, and could easily afford it. I gave her a cheque without blinking and never got around to "claiming" it on my taxes. That wasn't the point.
This year, we went looking for Unicef, and found them online and gave as much as last year, despite no longer being a contractor, and even though money is quite a bit tighter this year.
I was reminded to find them through the words of my friends, through other online postings, was urged to go find either Direct Relief, or Oxfam, the Red Cross or Unicef.
I listened, I blinked my eyes tightly and talked to Dave and we picked one and smiled at each other when it was done.
I'm still sitting here feeling helpless and somewhat shellshocked -- so I'm thinking about it from my own point of view.
My own point of view is this -- clearly my life is in a place where I am ready to begin a family, a place where we cook our own dinners and occasionally splurge on DVDs or a fresh goose for the roasting.
If I am finally in that place, my old student's excuse of "I need all my cash right now" doesn't work anymore.
I think this is the second year in a multi-year practice that we're going to undertake.
Maybe it's a ghostly remnant of my jewish roots, or maybe amidst all the pain my parents taught me something, but somehow I feel that if I have all this fortune (depiste our own recent tragedies), then I should be contributing to those that have less.
I guess I failed the capitalism test.