11/3/23 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: First Grade Saints at All Saints Day Mass

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

Anniversaries are times to reflect on the year that has passed and to contemplate the year that will be. We do it on birthdays, wedding anniversaries and at the end of each calendar year. Some are milestones and marked by huge celebrations. Others are remembered quietly.

For me, October 31 was the first anniversary of hitting a deer on the freeway. Memories become distinct but sometimes not logical. I remember first the face, specifically, the dark eye of the six-point buck in my windshield before I felt a thump, followed by the complete shattering of the glass in front of me. Then all was dark and silent as I managed to pull over to the berm.

Although my 2013 Honda Fit was totaled, I escaped relatively unscathed. If I heard it once, I heard it many, many times. “Boy, were you lucky.”

A few months later, while others contemplated the anniversary of January 6 for political reasons, I went to the hospital with a tumor that kept bleeding and bleeding inside of me. My stepson undoubtably saved my life. I had gone home from school because of severe pain. My wife was on her way to Los Angeles. Stephen was not yet back in college, and he took me to Riverside. All I heard that week was, “Boy are you lucky that Stephen was home.”

On the Ides of March, the 15th for those who don’t know their Julius Caesar history, Roman scholars and Latin geeks commemorate the assignation of Caesar by members of his own senate. For me, that is the day that I fell with the thud and grace of a sack of potatoes from my back deck, breaking five bones. As the doctor in the urgent care counted the breaks, I could hear him say, “Boy were you lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

Finally, on August 9, the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, my daughter Bethany’s birthday, and the date that Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency, I felt a tickle in my throat that led to a persistent and deep cough that led to pneumonia. As an official senior citizen, I was admonished, weeks later when I finally got around to seeing a doctor, “Boy are you lucky that it didn’t get more serious than it did.”

And so, my year of good luck ended this week as I turned the page. What do I have t show for it? I have a slightly newer Honda Fit, I have a benign tumor attached to my adrenal gland that needs to be measured every six months, I have a permanently crooked pinky finger that looks always poised to wrap itself around my bike’s handlebar, and I have a raspy voice which has ruined any potential career as a singer. Boy am I lucky!

And I don’t say that sarcastically. I have a wonderful wife, four children and nine grandchildren. I belong to a Christ filled parish where I also get to spend my days working in a school full of laughter, love, and learning. I enjoy the fellowship of my fellow Knights of Columbus, and I get to hang out at Crew Stadium from time-to-time meeting new people and watching a little soccer. And I still get to ride my bicycle, slower and less miles each year, but still enjoying every ride, especially on May 9 each year, the anniversary of being hit by a blue van that, like Captain Ahab searching for Moby Dick, I look for on every ride when I am on Summit Ave.

If you, like me, have more good days than bad, more friends than enemies than we are indeed lucky. If we have the means to eat daily and sleep under a roof nightly, then we are indeed lucky. If we have the love of family members who support us, and fond memories of those family members no longer with us, then we are indeed lucky. And the fact that we recognize that we are children of God, made in His image and likeness, and saved by the death and resurrection of His only Son, then we are very lucky indeed.

Join me in remembering your lucky anniversaries and remember to watch for deer. They are everywhere this time of year!

Jim Silcott