Counting Change

Unwelcome change welcomes languages, and all of the languages I come to know to some degree—come even to forget—share numbers. The numerical representation of the word “one” is 1 in Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian; it is 1 in Turkish; it is 1 in English; it is 1 in French; it can be 1 in Japanese. My aunt says, “You have just 1 life. Live it. Treasure it.”