{"id":969,"date":"2022-02-22T18:07:05","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T18:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/?page_id=969"},"modified":"2022-02-22T18:07:05","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T18:07:05","slug":"luck-of-the-draw","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/past-issues\/2021-edition\/luck-of-the-draw\/","title":{"rendered":"Luck of the Draw"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Colette Marie<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad has forgotten my name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s tired from working in the yard <\/p>\n\n\n\n

but stands from his chair on the patio<\/p>\n\n\n\n

lifted by delight as if someone <\/p>\n\n\n\n

flipped on the switch <\/p>\n\n\n\n

for the lights and music, cued <\/p>\n\n\n\n

a party to begin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, look who\u2019s here!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

he says, smiling for all the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my lucky day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad can\u2019t sort out which day it is <\/p>\n\n\n\n

or what time, and doesn\u2019t remember<\/p>\n\n\n\n

whether or not he\u2019s had his lunch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he can sort the cards in his hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dementia hasn\u2019t stolen those from him yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s your mom?\u201d he has asked <\/p>\n\n\n\n

nineteen times in the last fifty-five minutes <\/p>\n\n\n\n

as we play rummy. I can\u2019t help <\/p>\n\n\n\n

but keep count. \u201cRunning errands,\u201d I say <\/p>\n\n\n\n

again. He responds with a smile again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky,\u201d he says. \u201cTo have your mom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He looks me in the eye, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

serious, \u201cI\u2019ve been lucky, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you know, my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad has one card left <\/p>\n\n\n\n

after laying down a jack of hearts <\/p>\n\n\n\n

on his eight-through-ten run. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour turn,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I draw a card and wonder <\/p>\n\n\n\n

if my mom is stuck in traffic, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

discard my queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He picks up the queen and grins, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou could have played that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if he\u2019s still teaching me\u2014the one<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who taught me how electricity <\/p>\n\n\n\n

works, how living things sprout <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and grow, how to tie a knot, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

hammer a nail, how to swim<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in the deep end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He snaps the queen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

into place next to his jack <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and discards out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI win,\u201d he declares, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

surprised. \u201cYou know, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

my memory\u2019s not so good<\/p>\n\n\n\n

anymore. I got lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad has always been good at cards<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with his quick mind, his ability to focus, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

to calculate far into the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember how he bought<\/p>\n\n\n\n

snow tires for my car<\/p>\n\n\n\n

after I moved to Colorado, wired <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the light on my porch <\/p>\n\n\n\n

when he came to visit, drove <\/p>\n\n\n\n

his truck slow with my son, ten days old,  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

strapped into the back seat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He fixed the broken trellis, put in <\/p>\n\n\n\n

a new kitchen sink <\/p>\n\n\n\n

and a ceiling fan in the bedroom <\/p>\n\n\n\n

after my daughter was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou still want to play?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nod, gather up the cards, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

give the deck to him to shuffle.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cards make an arc<\/p>\n\n\n\n

between his work-battered hands,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fold perfectly into place<\/p>\n\n\n\n

making a neat stack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He furrows his brow <\/p>\n\n\n\n

with concentration, deals slowly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

back and forth, until <\/p>\n\n\n\n

there are seven cards each<\/p>\n\n\n\n

on the table between us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMe too, Dad.\u201d I pick up my cards<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and smile. \u201cI got lucky too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colette Marie 1. My dad has forgotten my name. He\u2019s tired from working in the yard  but stands from his chair on the patio lifted by delight as if someone  flipped on the switch  for the lights and music, cued  a party to begin.  \u201cWell, look who\u2019s here!\u201d  he says, smiling for all the world. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":519,"featured_media":0,"parent":920,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-969","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":970,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/969\/revisions\/970"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/oe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}