Some years ago I volunteered to be  treasurer of my daughter’s travel soccer team. In order to secure the services of a professional coach a large sum of money needed to be amassed from the participating families ahead of the season. Based on the commitments I reckoned the amount each family should pay and acted on their good faith. One father was particularly slow in sending me his payment which he eventually did after a great deal of feet dragging and importunity. As the season began it was evident that the team was barely holding together: attendance at practice was sparse and dedication was almost non-existent.

After the first week of practice I got an email indicating that this wishy-washy father wanted a refund—that his daughter couldn’t play after all and so forth. The problem: the check to the coaching staff had already been cut. Furthermore, an avalanche of defectors would mean a dwindling number of families would be stuck holding the bag of an expensive soccer season that would amount to personalized training. Basically a full refund wasn’t possible. The die was cast.

With the utmost diplomacy, I explained in a private email to this individual why a full refund could not be issued. This did not sit well with the father and after some bantering, he responded in a hostile email deliberately copying all the families of the team as if that would curry favour.  The structure of the message was designed to aggrandize the writer as a rich corporate so-and-so who lived on a massive estate in Great Falls with money to burn while I was some petty poor slob attempting to extort money out of him to subsidize the team. I responded privately:

Dear ______,

Congratulations on being rich and important. Given the differences in our zip code there is a high likelihood that you indeed have more assets and wealth than me. You have many more acres of prime real estate and drive a Mercedes Benz. Your kids are all brilliant and go to the best schools in the land. Well done, well done.

Perhaps it is no accident that the date of this reply is April 10—a most peculiar anniversary for me and not one you are likely to encounter in many lives. On this day, I commemorate the fact that I am the “richest man I know”. You see, many decades ago, when I was a teen, April 10 was the day a surgeon removed a malignant tumour from my neck. This was the start of an ordeal that put me in touch with my own mortality.

On this day I celebrate the fact that I am alive once more around the sun. I celebrate graduating from high school and college. I celebrate that I lived long enough to get married and have a family. I celebrate that I was able to sire children when that should not have been possible at all. I celebrate the prosaic things in life because I understand how really important those things are when they are suddenly unavailable.

I know that money may buy the choicest food but can never buy appetite. Money may provide the best health care but doesn’t always buy health. Money may buy an Ivy League education but cannot buy wisdom—apparently.

Congratulations again on being rich, but, no matter how much money you amass, you will never be richer than me.

The Treasurer