I know this isn't exactly the outfit you were expecting to see, but this T-shirt is very, very important to me. And this year you're not going to see me strip down to my underwear because that doesn't have to happen, because I've already been stripped down to my bare skin.
And this year the Nurses Ball cannot be just business as usual. You see, that would make it just too darn easy because we come here every year and we write our little checks and our great big fat checks, and I thank you - God bless all of you for doing that.
And we laugh together and watch the entertainment and we look so nice and we have so much fun. And it's done, the nurses ball is over and we can just go home for another year, you know, and come back next year.
But it's not over. People are dying. People are dying, that's business as usual. And you make your donations, that's business as usual. And you get up every morning and go to work, and you try to make the lives of the people you really, really love comfortable and happy and safe. And then BOOM! out of nowhere the universe slaps you and takes and somebody is gone. Or stop getting better or something goes wrong.
And you realize that you're not safe and everything's not okay and that we cannot give up. We have to fight on. You know, we have choices in life, when you get up in the morning, you're trying to go through your life, you have a choice. Your choice is you can live your life aware and awake with your eyes wide open or you can chose to close your eyes tightly shut and keep them that way.
In this country we're very lucky because if we want to, we can chose to keep our eyes closed. C'mon, really, who wants to think about Africa anyway, or Asia or all those the millions of people who are infected with HIV and AIDS. Only 2% of those people have the chance to survive. That means that there are lots of babies out there that will grow up without their parents. No baby deserves to grow up without her family.
So that means we the lucky ones, we have to do more. It's that simple, we have to keep wearing our red ribbons and our T-shirts, and we have to keep making those donations. We also have to keep in our mind in the back of our heads that there are people out there that we can't see - there are millions of them. And this isn't just some charity cause to them, some evening to spend out with your friends.
This is what they're living, death is in their faces and in their hearts and in their homes and in their towns. And they are watching the people they love die. And these people they love can't fight any more. They have given up because they are too poor or too weak. So we have to fight for them, we have to fight the good fight for them because we can.
We are capable and we are blessed. We're so very, very blessed. We can't stop you see, because I don't think this disease is stopping right now. And if this disease is not going to stop, then we can't either. If we have to crawl through mud in a rainstorm or fly down to Kathmandu or fly down to Brazil to do what ever it takes because there's one person out there who's suffering, just one person who is alone and scared and needs then that's what we have to do. We have to go to them because it is our privilege to help them, it is our responsibility as a country and a people to lead the way.
And those beautifully written documents that are preserved in those glass cases in Washington, D.C., they say that everyone is created equal. Everyone, everywhere. We cannot allow AIDS and HIV to be business as usual. We have got to find a cure for everyone, everywhere. A real cure.
And Please Visit these wonderful Sites to Find Out What You Can Do To Help Find A Cure
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