How do people continue to fund raise for the same cause year after year? How do they sustain donor attention and donor support from the same people in their circles?

I’ve realized that a lot of the donations I’ve gotten for the AFSP donor drive are from people who are new to me, mainly colleagues that have started within the last year, after I did my first Out of the Darkness walk, who would not otherwise know my story about my brother. Three of my colleagues were incredibly generous and donated $100 each; I was so shocked and touched at the same time. But would they still donate next year, or the year after that, and the year after that? My story will evolve every year, but how do I keep people understanding that this is not just a one-time effort to get attention, that I really believe in what I am fund raising for, and that I believe we as human beings have a bigger purpose in this life other than just earning money and earning a living and simply existing?

I don’t know how to answer that. I just have to ignore the people who ignore my cause, otherwise my cynicism will grow, which is exactly what I don’t want. My level of cynicism should either stay the same or go down. Otherwise, Ed will probably be pissed at me.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. On the sixth of August every year, people in Hiroshima gather at the Peace Memorial Park to mourn those who died as a result of “Little Boy.” Most of the major news publications posted articles with coverage from Hiroshima, as well as reminders of what actually happened. I was listening to a BBC podcast discussing those who were comparing coverage of the Hiroshima bombing around that very time seventy years ago, and they noted how the U.S. government refused to show photo or video coverage of the actual victims who affected and/or died during the bombing; they would only show remains of buildings, as though the bombing killed no one. It removed all humanness from the bombing, and none of the photos or details of the effects of the people were released until the 1980s in the U.S. As someone who has had the privilege to visit Hiroshima recently and actually visit the museum that has extremely detailed photos and documentation from the bombing, I felt so angry being reminded of this.

The BBC News podcast I listened to also mentioned a survivor of the bombing who has traveled to the U.S. to speak out about the atrocity and continued effects on the few remaining survivors to this day. She is now in her late 80s, but she says she feels compelled to continue speaking about the event publicly so that people remain aware… because if she doesn’t do it, who else will?

Oddly, it made me think about my American Prevention for Suicide Prevention donor drive that I am doing for the second time this year in honor of Ed. Last year, I was so overwhelmed in the beginning with the outpouring of support I received, even from those I didn’t even think would care, in the form of words and extremely generous donations. This year, I sent out an email with my story to those who had already donated last year, as well as a subset of my colleagues. The donations have been slow to trickle in, which made me feel disappointed. Is it because I already did this last year, and so therefore it’s not as touching or “new” to people? Are they going to get tired thinking, is she really going to do this every year, and does she really expect us to donate every single year?

Cynically, then I thought, it’s like the way Ed’s passing was handled. In the beginning, everyone seemed, at least superficially, concerned and like they wanted to be supportive. But as time went on, the care and the compassion little by little started to diminish. It’s back to the regular ways of life. Forget that ever happened! Back to normal! Well, perhaps back to normal for you, but it will never be back to “normal” for me. It’s grabbed everyone’s attention in the beginning, but we live in a society of short attention spans. Everyone cares… for just a little bit. And then, they either slow it down or just stop completely. But why can’t more of us have the attitude of that 80-something-year-old atom bomb survivor in Hiroshima? She works and continues doing what she does because she wants people to be aware. She doesn’t want the awareness to die. So what’s wrong with the rest of us? It’s just too much work, or too hard, right, or so the excuses go?

These are the moments I lose faith in society and those people around me, even the ones who say they love me and care about me. If you care about me, you care about the causes I care about — maybe not as deeply, but at least the core goal of them and what they are trying to achieve. If you don’t, then what are you trying to do and achieve in your life that is so much more important or better?

The air conditioner in our living room died today. The odd thing was that I didn’t even realize it — Chris did. He notified our super about this, who will look into this tomorrow, but as I realized that the air was not cool while preparing dinner this afternoon, I thought about the couple of years I lived in that third floor Elmhurst apartment and didn’t have an AC until my landlord gave me the one his former tenant left behind. I can’t even believe I somehow managed to sleep with just a fan blowing on me for two summers.

I guess that’s what you do when you are young, don’t think you make that much money, and are cheap: you think you can “tough” it out without “luxuries” like air conditioners, and you deal with crappy fans and somehow think you are better for it. You’ll save money by not buying an air conditioner! Your electricity bill won’t go up! You don’t need all that, right? In retrospect, I regret being so cheap and pathetic. I never had a low income while living in New York. I was always able to live comfortably and do what I wanted. I could have been more comfortable all those summer nights and not have woken up dripping in my own sweat, feeling like I was sleeping in an oven.

Life is short. You should live comfortably and at least allow yourself a comfortable night’s sleep. It’s the least you owe yourself.

I can’t believe it. Today is my dad’s 67th birthday. I don’t know about you, but 67 sounds kind of old. When I’m around my dad, he doesn’t seem 67 to me; he seems much younger. His voice is still as strong as it’s always been. His grip is like a 20-something-year-old’s. He has a lot of childlike qualities, for better or for worse. His hobbies include model railroad and caring for tropical fish. He has boxes and boxes of unopened model railroad parts all over the basement, and two large tanks of tropical fish that he’s still adding to. He can spend hours tinkering with all of these things. Maybe it might seem like a 67-year-old’s hobby to some, but when I watch my dad taking care of these things, he doesn’t seem that old at all. He seems like a little kid in a big person’s body, wondering how he got to be this age and this old. Where did most of his hair go, and how did he get those wrinkles on his face? How did he get married and raise two children with his wife, and have to go through the untimely death of his first born?

It’s hard to watch our parents grow old because we know that inevitably, they will not live forever and will die like the rest of us. Each birthday of my dad’s that passes now, as awful as it sounds, the first thing I think about is that it’s another birthday that my brother never lived to see, whether he wanted to see it or not.

To more and more of my dad’s birthdays that Ed will not see.