I was driven to the brink of despair.  We had exhausted our funds and my creativity in creating funds from thin air – something I’ve unfortunately had a lot of practice at and gotten rather good at in my life.  Our friends and family had done their best to help, but none of us are doing so well as to have a lot of discretionary funds to throw around.  We had applied to every government program that might help us – and some had accepted us but the funds simply were not sufficient for our needs.  I had applied for, gotten, and worked at several jobs and been let go from each one for the same reason – most of my time was needed to take care of my husband and to get him to dialysis and doctors appointments.

We were in very real danger.  My husband must have dialysis to live.  We did not have enough money to put gas in the car to get him to the nearest dialysis center – 100 miles away.  In addition – that dependable little car had started to need some repairs, and tags and insurance are due.

I did the only thing I could think of to do – I appealed to several online communities that I have been a member of for some time.

And within one hour, there was over $100 in my PayPal account – contributed by people all over the world who only know me online.

From the time that humans began living in tribes instead of single-family groups they began to care for those less fortunate.  A child born with a disability of some kind often became the responsibility of the entire group to support.  Widows were provided for or taken in by other family members or members of their husbands family or in some cultures the tribal leader took responsibility for their and their children’s well being.

In small villages and communities, if a family fell on hard times the neighbors would help.  They would share food, help plant or harvest, trade or share labor.  There were no formal agreements or expectations – other than when better days came for the recipient they would in turn assist their neighbors should a hard time come for them.   It was simply what people did.

Even as humans began to live in larger and larger groups and communities this spirit stayed alive.  Large cities still consisted of smaller neighborhoods, and there was a feeling of community among the residents.  In fact, you can still find this feeling in some places around the world even in the largest cities and certainly in the smaller communities.

In the 1930s, reeling from The Great Depression, with a population of over 122 million people to care for President Roosevelt created the Social Security program as part of the New Deal.  At the time it included unemployment insurance, as well as provisions to care for the elderly, widows, fatherless children, and the blind – the only disability it covered at the time.  Then, as now, it was funded by a payroll tax paid half by employer and half by employees.

Since its inception Social Security has grown to cover many disabilities, and provides far more than mere support for fatherless children and their mothers.  Some services have been split off to better serve the needs of their beneficiaries, such as unemployment insurance and the food stamps program.

Along the way it became a target for fraud and abuse. There will always be dishonest people who would rather lie, cheat or steal than work for a living.  The funny thing about that is in the long run it is usually harder to cheat than it is to be honest – but try to convince a cheater of that.  Back when we lived in smaller communities – everyone pretty well knew who the thief was and there wasn’t much chance of them getting a hand up unless they changed their ways.  But how can we sort them out when they are sprinkled through a large community?

Social Security and the many related programs, including those run by the individual States and communities, have had to institute all sorts of requirements to sort the cheaters from the people honestly in need of help.  Unfortunately, in my personal opinion anyway, in some cases they have raised the bar until people who are really in need of help are not able to fulfill the requirements to get it because of a lack of transportation, communications, a fixed address, etc. the sort of things you can often lose – if you even had them to begin with -  when you are going through rough times.

Another side effect is that the time between application for assistance and actually receiving that assistance is often so long that the person in need is not able to “hold out” in one way or another.

And that’s where we were at the beginning of this essay.

So, desperate, I sent out a plea for help to my community.  In this case, the members of Squidoo and the smaller numbers of people who follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and so on.  And my community responded.  In fact, responded so strongly that I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

They couldn’t walk over with a warm dish of something for dinner, or drop by with some leftovers for our chickens, or pick us up and give us a ride to the dialysis center in their car – because most of them live hundreds of miles away.  But the same spirit moved them to send as much as they could afford.  Most of them insist that I not repay them directly – but “pay it forward”.   That is, someday when we are doing better the opportunity will come along to help someone out and we should do so with the same generosity and good will as has been expressed to us.  We will.

And that is the REAL “Social Security”.  People coming together to help people.

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