Lucky Guy

Dear Rachel,

I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty lucky person. I’ve almost always gotten the things I really needed or wanted: good job, nice home, wonderful wife. And much of that, I think, was really just luck. Yeah, I worked for it, but other people worked just as hard (or harder), were just as smart (or smarter), and not all of them have had good lives. Some of them have suffered horribly; some have had their lives brutally cut short.

But not me. I’ve never really suffered. And until now, there just hasn’t been that much that I’ve wanted that I couldn’t have.

Now I have to come to grips with the knowledge that—in spite of the fact that I still have a good life—not much of what I’ve accomplished in terms of material success really means much. Who cares if I can drive a nice car? Go to the movies when I want? Live in a nice house? It’s not that this stuff isn’t meaningful, it is; but its importance pales beside the things that really matter. I would give it all up in a heartbeat—and so would Lesley, Debbie, Amy, and others—if I could have you back.

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, I now discover that the one thing I want most in the world turns out to be the one thing that I cannot have.

Love,

Dad