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08/27/2007: "She's Our Lottery"
Something I didn't expect about being married is just how long a shared joke can endure. A somewhat clever thing that would have entertained you and your boyfriend for a week or even a month... well, when you find the one, that thing becomes a touchstone that you come back to over and over. The difference between a short term relationship and the love of your life may simply be how deeply you make these connections and how willing you are to revisit them.
A long standing joke between Dave and I has to do with the California lottery. Dave has, over the years, become the designated purchaser of lottery tickets. Neither of us is much for gambling, and neither of us is the type to plan a future based on the luck of the draw, but likewise both of us are smart enough to understand the "give me a break, buy a ticket" wisdom.
(Are you unfamiliar with this one? OK, here goes: A pious man prays to God every night, "Please God, I'm a good person and I do good deeds. I ask not for myself but for those I could help - let me win the lottery." A week goes by and the man doesn't win the lottery. The next week he begs again, "Dear God I would only do right with the money - let me win the lottery" but to no avail, he doesn't win. The third week he prays again - "Oh Lord, why do you deny me, a good man? I beg of you to let me win the lottery!" and suddenly a voice bellows from the heavens, "Gimme a break! Buy a ticket!")
I don't want to be that guy, so we play a buck a week. Or thereabouts - sometimes we forget to buy the ticket. Then we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
In any case, we play the same numbers every week. Our birthdays, our anniversary, personal numbers... and 9 as the bonus number because that's how long it takes to have a baby (we've been playing the same numbers since long before I was pregnant). They are good numbers, sweet numbers and while I don't believe they're magical, I like them because we picked them together and they represent hope and the future for us.
The one thing they aren't is lucky numbers. We've never won even $5 on them. Hope and the future, indeed.
The actual joke comes in because every time Dave mentions that we didn't win, I wearily remind him that he was supposed to buy the winning ticket and why didn't he just ask for the winning ticket for God's sake?
Look, I never said it was a good joke. I just said it was one we come back to over and over. He plays the numbers we picked, they lose, I tease him about his poor purchasing skills. Married life is made of this stuff.
Last night Dave and I were talking about this and that and of course we got around to discussing the baby. Now, it took quite a while for us to even decide to try for a baby, and then it took a year (and a miscarriage) before we had a pregnancy stick. The whole 9 months felt like a tightrope act for me, I was so nervous about it all. Often when I look at Dessa I think about how improbable she is. How amazed I am to have her, to be a mother at all... that she is here. My own daughter.
There was a time when I wasn't at all certain that I would ever be in this place. And now that I am, I feel profound gratitude to Dave for his help in getting here. Not simply his genetic contributions but the chance he took to start a family. It wasn't an easy decision; it took a gigantic leap of faith.
And so I thank him from time to time, because I do feel grateful and I think he should know that I know what a gift it all is. And I thanked him last night because I was feeling particularly emotional (it was Sunday night. A new work week started today. You want to make something of my emotionally fragile state?)
In response, he told me about how much he liked the whole fatherhood thing, and that he was maybe a little sorry we'd waited so long. To which I pointed out that I wasn't sorry at all. "If we'd tried earlier we would have had a different baby and I like this one," I said.
He looked at her thoughtfully. "She's our lottery," he said.
I may never tease him about buying the wrong ticket again.
Replies: 1 Comment - Go read it!
on Thursday, August 30th, come clean said
Wonderful story. It's those little things we share that are the important things many people overlook. Congrats on winning the lottery :)
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