Growing up, we are a taught she is a symbol of luck. When I first saw her, it was natural for me to feel lucky.
Autumn had recently given way to its bitter cousin, Winter, and I thought she just wanted shelter from Winter’s chilly shrills. At first she would climb along the horizontal blinds like Alex Honnold slithering up El Capitan. She would walk past me on my bed and wander to and fro on my shorts. But with each passing day, her movements slowed.
Until one day I saw her on her back on the bedside table, arms and legs hugged tightly into her chest like they ask you to do in yoga classes. Thinking she needed help, I flipped her over. I hoped she would be thankful for the gesture.
But the next time I saw her, she had resumed the same position. Again I flipped her over. She didn’t move.
Over the next few weeks I would find her sisters scattered around my room resting peacefully. It’s as if my room was a place they had chosen to spend their final moments.
Am I lucky that they would choose my room as their sanctuary? A place where they could spend their final days in peace?
Did she and her sisters feel safe here? Did these ladies want me to write about them so they could be remembered?
Am I lucky to witness the luck run out?
“It’s no fun being old,” Paw Paw reminds me every now and again. Her eyesight has deteriorated, and as a result her sewing machine and quilting table, two distant artifacts of her dexterous prime, have become a settlement to the wandering dust bunnies. The aches in her knees and hips echo in the canyon of physical activity she used to dominate; a gladiator she once was. Although her sense of taste has evaporated from her tongue and fused with the atmosphere, she can still make a flavorful batch of Singapore noodles or homemade zhong, one of my roommate’s top favorite foods of all time.
Stop and smell the roses. Stop and observe them too. Will you find luck or will luck find you?
Wishing you good luck.
hw
