Not everyone indulges in superstitions, but I inherited
several from my mother that have become so deeply ingrained that I’ve managed
to pass them on to our children. For
instance, Mother was fanatical that no laundry be done on New Year’s Day. She believed that doing laundry on that day
would signal a death in the family during the year. What that generally meant was that we washed
everything on New Year’s Eve, thus starting out the New Year with everything
clean, especially our clothes, which, when you think of it, is not necessarily
a bad thing. So, like many
superstitions, it seems to have a positive aspect. Not walking under ladders definitely keeps
one from a potential accident.
One particular superstition that we share with lots of other
folks is that trouble comes in sets of three.
Like lots of other folks, we’ve managed to find that pattern in our
lives, sometimes with just a bit of imagination. Recently we started a set of three that was,
as best we can remember, one of our all-time ‘interesting’ sets. First, we managed to become victims of a
nasty tummy virus that was ‘going around’, and one by one, we each got sick,
suffered, then recovered. Then a few
days later, we found, after a wonderful, heavy, long-needed rain, that a leak
had caused a small area of ceiling plaster to fall in our kitchen, in the
middle of the night. That was two. And then the very next day, about midday, our
son became suddenly, terribly ill, with scary pain, and we had to call for an
ambulance to take him to hospital. That
was definitely number three.
The good news is that eleven days later our son came home,
weary but mending, and while his illness was very serious and we were very
worried, we have all tried very hard to find the positive aspect to each of
these events. The tummy virus has made
us absolute fanatics about washing our hands every single time we touch a door
or a shopping cart in a public place.
The ceiling leak means we’re pushed to prevent what could be a much
worse problem. And as for our son, well,
we’ve had a firm reminder of what a good and kind man our son is, how precious
life is, and that we must remember, every day, to live that life to the
fullest. To tell those we love that we
love them. To remember that every day is
a gift. And maybe this ‘set of three’ is
complete, at least for now.
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