From "The Still Point of the Turning World" by Emily Rapp

I've been thinking about this passage over and over. I attribute a lot of things to luck, off and on, without much thinking about it. But I think I really like the idea life being about life, rather than being about luck, and whether or not I have any. I kind of feel like I should be careful when I use the phrase "luck" - she has a definite point.

Granted, we do not chose where to be born, or who our parents are, or our socioeconomic status. I would have formerly attributed those to luck of the draw, but maybe they are just the way life lays out. It's a strange and interesting ride, that's for sure.


[p. 93, on luck]

"The geneticist told us that if each of us had our DNA analyzed, we’d freak out; we’d be horrified by the many possibilities that may await us next year, in a decade, tomorrow, next week, a moment from now. 

“So, it’s about luck,” I said. 

“No,” he said, "It's about life. Any of us, at any moment, could manifest something we don't expect."

I misunderstood the concept of luck by believing it existed. I didn't need to feel cursed because Ronan had a terminal illness; I was long past caring what people thought about my own disapbility and what may have caused it or why. We talk about luck, I think, because it makes us feel blessed (another troublesome, annoyingly “folksy” word that is spoken by a character, at some point, in every episode of Little House on the Prairie). Saying “I’m so lucky” might feel to some like a priestly incantation, some kind of protective spell that makes people believe they’re standing on solid ground while the unlucky folks within shouting distance squirm around in the quicksand with their cancer and diseases and dying babies, but life – not luck – will find you eventually. To say “I’m lucky,” feels almost mean-spirited. It is mistaken for thankfulness, but it's not; it's smug and congratulatory, as if bad luck were a mischievous old gossipy lady with bad breath and kleptomania who you, super smartypants you, were wise enough to kick out of your house before she slipped the family jewels into her big ugly purse while everyone else was stupid enough to let her in and feed her expensive chocolates." 

Falling into darkness

Fall's snuck in the door. The days are still semi-warm, but dripping water from the sky periodically knocks on our roofs. It's calming and peaceful and invites us to stay inside, thinking and reading and writing.

I've been savoring a heart-wrenching and interesting book by Emily Rapp called "The Still Point of the Turning World". It's a biography and grief exploration. Her son, Ronan, was diagnosed with Tay-Sachs, which means he dies by age three. She also grew up with a genetic deformity herself and had a foot amputated as a child, followed by a series of prosthetic legs. I relate to a lot of the things she writes regarding people's reactions to your life situation and your loss. The way people see you as the other and themselves and the lucky ones. Those who didn't have their kid die. Or their dad die. Or whatever bad luck that happened to stumble into your life. But even if those people think they are in a protective bubble, life happens to everyone. It will happen to you and to me. And in the end we all die, which I guess is the whole thing that makes us alive.

The other day, I had a patient in his sixties, going on and on about how he was so lucky to have never had to wear glasses. And how his parents were so lucky as well. How his dad didn't wear any glasses ever, and died in his nineties, and his mom was so lucky until she was eighty-eight when she finally needed reading glasses and then she also died in her nineties. He repeated this story over and over again during his exam about how lucky his family was. I was starting to feel like it was an attack or act of aggression or slap in the face. I wanted to say, my dad was so lucky, he never had to wear glasses either. Until he died at thirty-four.

The patient actually had not great vision distance or near and probably arrogance was more of the reason for being so lucky that he didn't have to wear glasses rather than having perfect vision. The same man proceeded in his rudeness to my assistant out front, nearly making her cry. I try not to judge people and just tell myself, "Thank god, I'm not married to that man." But that guy was something else.

Maybe I'm more sensitive right now. It's nearing the thirty year anniversary of my dad's death. I keep thinking about him and the fall and thinking about his last year here and going into the hospital and not coming out. It's hard to believe it's been that long. And it's hard to believe he ever existed.