Lucky

Let's start by stating the obvious:  Once you've been privileged enough to bake with a Kitchen Aid, a spatula, an arthritic arm, and a $10 hand mixer just don't cut it any more.

Then again, there are other things to consider.  Last week I took the second volume of a deposition of a man who, after returning to work following the holidays last year, slipped, fell, had one emergency spine surgery and two subsequent spine surgeries, and lost temporary use of all four of his extremities.  His mobility is much improved since I took his deposition in July, but undoubtedly as his family gathers this year for Thanksgiving they must be remarking at how much their lives have changed.

Thanksgiving is an American holiday, of course.  We are probably the people in the world who have the most to be thankful for.  Even my deponent lives in a country where there is a system in place to provide for an injured worker.  That is a privilege.

I will eat today.  I will eat until I feel I may burst and then I will take a break and then I will eat again.  Some time this evening I will say good night to my loving family and venture with my kind-hearted boyfriend to meet my wonderful friends in a bar that I love and we'll sing karaoke and swap food and laugh and I will have a perfect day.  Somewhere else in the world someone is living a life quite the opposite of my own.  They didn't do anything to land themselves there, any more than I did anything right to get so very lucky in life.  We both ended up where we are by the roll of God's providential dice.

Maybe an outsider would look at me and only see the most glaringly unlucky part of my life.  It can be easy to slip into focusing on what I don't have on a day like today.  Gabriel's absence is obvious and painful.  I wonder what kind of picky eating habits he would have developed.  Perhaps unlike his momma he would love pumpkin pie the most.  I would have to require him to take two bites of everything on his plate before he could have pie, and that could take hours, but it would be worth the wait to watch the smile spread across his face at the sight of the burnt orange triangle, topped with Cool Whip.  I've missed my son all morning.  I miss my son every day.

But as I baked a pan of pumpkin cake bars, this year's alternative to one of my less-favored Thanksgiving staples, I could feel Rocco move contentedly inside of me and a feeling of contentment came over me too.  My life is what it is.  I lost my son and I will always feel that loss in my core.  Still, I have so much to be thankful for.  I am grateful that God has chosen to bless me as He has, and I have been so very blessed.  I don't deserve it, certainly not anymore than anyone else I know, but this is the life I've been given and I love it.  I think I just might be the luckiest girl in the world.