My Mom used to call my wonderful Dad, ‘the absent-minded professor.’ I called him the luckiest unlucky person I’d ever met. He lost his wallet in the cab again and again and always got it back. He left his laptop on the plane and got that back, too. He had some kind of karma, I guess.
Dad worked for Columbia University, and one of the perks was a parking space in a lot near his home on 113th Street. A Manhattan parking space is no small thing, as you can imagine. He used that parking space for over 40 years, but we had to give it up a few years after he died.
Last January, I parked right outside the lot on a particularly busy weekend. When I left, I loaded up my suitcase in the back of my SUV and Sophie Gooddog in the back seat, drove to Brooklyn to have dinner with friends, got home and … my suitcase wasn’t in the back. I’d MEANT to put it in the back, but I had actually left it on the street in the back of the car. OH NO! It had my laptop and my flute in it.
I immediately got in and started driving uptown, wondering why I was even doing so. This was 4 HOURS LATER! There was no way it was going to still be there. I called my mom, and she called a young Barnard student she knew, who walked over and by some miracle, my suitcase was there – on the sidewalk, untouched. My flute and my laptop (and my clothes) were still in it. OMG.
This week, I parked in just about the same spot in the afternoon while doing things with my mom. It was a particularly overwhelming day, and I was at my mom’s for about 7 hours. As Sophie and I were approaching the car, a young woman came out of the apartment building next to the parking lot with her little dog. “Is your dog friendly?” she asked. I nodded and we chatted a bit. As the dogs were sniffing each other, I was visibly fumbling in my pockets for the car (and apartment) keys. “Oh, do you have the Subaru in front?” she asked. “No,” I answered. “I have this one,” pointing to the car we were standing next to. “Because I found the keys to the car in front. I gave them to the doorman.” “Do they have a green hook?” I asked. I followed her back into the building as she went in – and CAME OUT WITH MY KEYS! “They were in the snow in front of that other car. I left a note for them. Would you take it off their windshield?”
OMG again – IF she hadn’t come out at exactly that moment IF she didn’t have a dog, IF my dog wasn’t friendly, IF IF IF …. I would never have gotten them! What a mess that would’ve been.
My brother said, “Man, you have the same kind of luck as Dad!” A friend said, “Your Dad is looking out for you.” Maybe Dad is thanking me for taking care of Mom. (It takes a village.)
I just know that I am so grateful.