My Four Leaf Clover

Easy summary to book two in the challenge: “This I Believe offers a simple, if difficult invitation: Write a few hundred words expressing the core principles that guide your life – your personal credo” (1). While most of the authors engage the reader, my two favorites involved a story about an adoption and the other a teenager's view on the future of the world. In honor of the This I Believe project, this post represents my amateurish attempt at their wonderful essay prompt.

I believe I’m lucky.

I remember several years ago reading about a guy in Las Vegas that had traveled there with his buddies for the opening weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Apparently, he sat waiting in one of the casinos at the south end of The Strip – Excalibur, MGM, one of those – for his friends to meet him. They were late. He plopped down on a stool in front of a slot machine. He waited a bit more. They were still late. Bored, he threw some cash into the machine and won the biggest slot payout in history – something like $30 million. The headline in the paper I read said something about this kid being lucky to have friends that couldn’t tell time.

I remember when Grandma Lawton bought some raffle tickets at St. William’s during their fall festival. She bought one for each grandkid and my ticket earned $500. I got to spend half of it on a black and yellow dirt bike. I cruised the neighborhood, jumping the curbs, and listened to every kid in our neighborhood call me lucky.

I remember driving home from New Orleans with Jen and Sandie. For a reason I don’t understand a dozen years later, Jen grabbed the steering wheel where the finger tips of my right hand gently rested. At 70mph, the car jerked through a lane of traffic, off the interstate, did two 360s – tires screeching, seatbelt stiff against my chest. We drove away slowly with no injuries, no damage to the car, and no other car in sight. Sandie said, “Holy shit. That was lucky.”

I view “lucky” differently than the Vegas paper, kids in the old neighborhood, and Sandie. I remember my parents have been married nearly forty years. I remember having a present at my spot at the kitchen table the first day of school every year; going to County Stadium with my Grandma, Rob, Mark, and dad once a summer; leaving the house after breakfast and playing in the “big forest” all day; babysitting my sisters and having to watch Annie on continuous loop (incidentally, Punjab’s an underrated character in American movie history). I remember Dave losing a tooth on the curb during a bombardment game in our early years at St. John’s and him being in our wedding. I remember many other lifelong friends; seeing Mt. Rainier, the Coliseum, kissing the Blarney Stone (yuck), understanding why aquamarine is a crayon color after sitting on that beach in Rhodes. I remember my healthy kids and meeting Jess in high school. And I remember learning the real definitions of hardship, dysfunction, and emotional pain from the kids we work with at school.

The philosopher in me wonders why I arrived on our planet as part of my family, providing me with incredible opportunity. The male comedian in me wonders why the hell I’m writing about touchy feely stuff. Either way, I’m lucky. This I believe.