With Any Luck

With any luck, your 4-year-old boy will bounce a basketball right into the tray of house paint leaving a series of dots all the way down the driveway.

With any luck, you’ll live long enough to see your house in need of new paint, a new roof and new plumbing.

With any luck, the grapes you buy at the grocery store will be too small, too sour, overripe, bruised and soft. The bananas will turn black and the mayonnaise will expire two days before picnic and potato salad.

With any luck, you’ll hear your loved ones tell the same stupid stories 10,000 times. Your children will hang on the shopping cart, run in the parking lot, beg for more candy, leave the backdoor open to flies and wet the bed at the 3 a.m. three nights in a row.

And, with any luck, you’ll survive something downright awful, and this awful thing will file down your own awful edges. With any luck, you’ll become better, not bitter. You’ll become giving, not greedy. You’ll respond to people who have nothing to offer you and find pardon for the stupid and faultless. You’ll admonish the jackasses, and forgive those who can’t forgive themselves. You’ll dip into the balm of truth and apply it to the dreadful puss of lies  – the kind that steal your youth and rob your sleep. You’ll be filled with mercy for others, and you’ll celebrate when you feel like quitting.

With any luck.

With any luck, you’ll live to see tomorrow. You’ll burn the toast and the coffee will be weak. You’ll take the trash from the kitchen to the backdoor, hope it doesn’t leak on the way, and toss it into the city-issued trash bin for 20,000th time. With any luck, on Thursday, you’ll drag it to the curb at dawn-thirty and see your favorite neighbor do the same.

With any luck, we’ll see that our simple little days are the totality of our lives, and with any luck, we’ll make the most of it.

With any luck.