The three of us on holiday in Ireland
I’m very lucky.
I’ve won the Lottery five times.
Yes indeed. I’m that lucky that I’m a five times winner of the Lottery.
Here’s how.
The first time I won was on August 5, 1953 when I was born into the most wonderful family you could hope for. Indeed, if I was given a choice, the family I got is the one I would have chosen!
My mother and father, neither of whom had easy childhoods, did everything for us and nothing for themselves. My mother was orphaned, along with her younger brother and sister, when she was just 13. My father was sent from a small village in Tipperary to lodgings in Dublin, in the mid 1920s, when he was barely a teenager so that he could get a good education in Synge Street. And yet, both turned out to be kind and generous without a hint of bitterness about their tough times.
The second time I won the lottery was when I was diagnosed with lymphoma – I thought I had psoriasis – and then when I was offered a Bone Marrow Transplant. It was kind of experimental for my particular lymphoma back when I had it in 2008. But I’m still here!
The third win came when Connie survived her first brain haemorrhage – the doctors were so sure she wasn’t going to live, that they told me to be near a ‘phone all night and to expect a call with bad news. Connie subsequently survived a second, unrelated haemorrhage.
My fourth win came with the arrival of Charlotte fifteen years ago. She is a joy – even if she is a teenager! I feel like a millionaire every time I see her.
And my fifth win came when my mother persuaded me to do a journalism course resulting in my ending up doing a job I didn’t know I wanted, and loving it for 48 years.
But they’re not Lottery wins you say.
Oh but they are.
Because if you told me I could swap any of the above for a Lottery win, I’d laugh. Not a chance. Not a hope in hell.
Five times.
Now THAT’S lucky!
(Just in case you’re interested, Liffey Press has published And Finally – A Journalists’s Life in 250 stories. It’s a grand book for the bedside because you don’t have to read it in any particular order. Bonkers, like its author. http://www.theliffeypress.com http://www.alanhannas.com or http://www.easons.com)
Paddy's World 