There is a white squirrel that plays in our back yard from time to time. We have scads of black squirrels and a sprinkling of grey squirrels, but this is the first white squirrel we’ve seen. 

We like to watch him whenever he shows himself. The last time I saw him, I called for my wife to look out her office window. “That means good fortune is headed our way,” she said when she spotted him.

“I could sure use some good fortune about now,” I replied. I think that’s a common sentiment these days, but I immediately regretted saying it. As a parent who chides his children for whining, I felt like a hypocrite.

I had fallen into the trap of thinking of good fortune in terms of big, milestone events: winning a lottery, getting a big promotion, or landing a book contract from a major publisher. 

True, none of those things have happened, and they aren’t on the horizon. It would be great if they did happen but expecting them will lead me into a lot of self-defeating whining.

Think he’ll let me rub his tummy for luck?

I’m not a person who finds himself in the right place at the right time. In that sense, I’m not lucky.

But in a more important sense, I am lucky. I’m not a person who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sometimes the most fortunate events are the ones that miss us – the things that don’t happen.

I have the people and things I need to be happy. Maybe fate has not answered my dreams, but it has also not burdened me with unsurmountable nightmares. 

The last two years have been a time of suffering around the world. I have suffered less than most. I did not lose my job. I did not lose any family members. My children have had to adjust to a new way of being children, but they have adjusted more easily than many others.

A lot of us could use some good fortune about now. Many of us already have it, often in the things we take for granted because they are not huge, lifechanging events.

A little, white squirrel made me consider all my subtle, good fortunes. How odd that he came to visit during our Thanksgiving Holiday.