Changing my luck

All these years of my life I've thought I was really unlucky. I couldn't win a contest, a lottery, or anything!

But last night as I was cleaning my key chain of unwanted and unused keys, I realized I could be all wrong about my luck. I remembered the late summer afternoon I took Simon to Devil’s Lake State Park. We played by the shore on the beach and watched the minnows feed and school along the shoreline. We wrestled in the sand. We wandered over and played at the playground a few minutes.

Then it started to get cooler and a storm seemed to be brewing. The clouds rolled in and the winds picked up. I don't like to drive in the dark especially when it's raining, so I thought we had better head home. I took Simon back to the van, opened the doors with the remote, set him in his car seat, buckled him in and went around to the driver's side. As I got into the van I went to put the key in the ignition, but it wasn't on my key ring. It must have come off somewhere in the park.

I looked around in the parking lot next to the van. I looked in the grass around where we walked. Then I got Simon out of the car and we walked back to the playground and looked around there. It was getting darker and colder. I was worried about getting stuck in the park in the cold and dark with Simon. I had no money to speak of and no phone. I was starting to get scared. There was hardly anyone left in the park as they had all begun to leave as the weather turned.

I was starting to plan a strategy for getting out of the park as we headed to the picnic area where Simon had played for a short time with another little boy. I didn't see the key there either. A black key, lost in the grass would be really hard to find at dusk. But my worst fear was that I had lost the key while I was wrestling with Simon in the sand.

As we approached the beach area my heart started to race. How was I going to find the key in the sand! We walked carefully along the shore where the sand was wet and I thought we had a good chance of seeing the key if it was there. No key.

It was now on the dark side of dusk. I decided we needed to head for the ranger's office. Maybe there would be an emergency phone there.

We headed up the beach toward the grass. I watched the sand carefully. About 8 feet from the grass, I saw a little bit of black peeking out from beneath the sand. I went up to it. I brushed the sand away. And there, almost unbelievably, was my car key.

WOW! what a relief! I was so happy! I took Simon in the van. I turned it on, cranked the heat and got my baby warm. I needed the headlights to drive. Boy oh boy, did I feel lucky!

I started thinking about all the lucky things that have happened in my life, but because I didn't win the big prize, I never really considered my everyday luck. My children are relatively healthy, I'm relatively healthy, I live in a warm house, I have food to eat. I have a car that runs. I have a job. That's pretty lucky.

So I guess, my luck really isn't that bad. I guess I'm lucky in ways I don't appreciate. Maybe it's not a matter of my luck changing, maybe it's just a matter of my mind changing.