Lucky me

My entry in the Lucky writing challenge, which I meant to post last week, but didn't because I like to procrastinate:

Oh, please--luck? Spare me from this silly notion. My luck ran out when I was ten, when my mother died from a treatable but misdiagnosed condition. She left four other children besides me, and my baffled father as well, the six of us holding on as long as we could manage it, then letting go of the lifeboat and sliding silently into an ocean of stifled emotions. That's putting it too mildly. The family exploded into glass shards of isolation--escaping to the American West or Ireland, escaping into drugs, escaping into preposterous religiosity or marriage to unsuitable partners. Anything but closeness, anything but mutual support. Damn the luck.

My second husband told me that the family dog of his childhood was named Lucky. I snorted when he said it, but another part of my brain acknowledged a tender response. A dog named Lucky. Dogs eat from garbage heaps and wait to be admitted into the house by their people. What sort of family is so together, so much at peace with the notion of luck, and so removed from cynicism that they could name their dog Lucky without irony? The marriage didn't last, of course, but occasionally I reflected on the dog. A symbol of fidelity, that dog, and other dogs who aren't named Lucky. There is a degree of naivety and trust that allows us to banish reserve and simply revel in the love of a dog. What's even better is that this condition of letting go and simply loving is quite applicable to children.

My second child was born just before I turned 40. I raised her by myself, working at whatever jobs didn't make me feel dread, attending university to complete a degree, cycling in and out of love relationships that failed not just a little but a lot, living hundreds of miles from the remnants of family upon whom I had long since given up.

My daughter has clear eyes and a fine mind. She doesn't wash dishes but she makes me laugh. At seventeen, my daughter is completing her second year of college and is a gifted singer and stage performer. We write together, share items from the internet that make us double over with hilarity, make plans for gourmet vegetarian meals, and praise our dogs for doing things like eating dog food or coming into the house when invited. Our tiny home is populated by dogs, cats, and friends who drop by to lounge on our battered couch and talk things over. My life with India is blissful. At some point--I don't know how it happened--I became the luckiest person in the world. I accept this.