If I were to live in one of those weird LOST episodes, it would be entitled "May 13."
May 13, 1971: Thursday. I was six years old. My mother was in charge of our ward's roadshow, and I was with her at the church, sitting on the stairs in front of the stage. A teenager ran from in back of the curtain and down the stairs and toppled over me. When I stood up, there was blood running down my face from a cut above my eye. Mom and the other adults rushed to my aid, and one of the ladies said "It's the thirteenth, but at least it's not Friday! Or this would have been worse!" I have no idea why that stuck in my head, but I was grateful it wasn't worse than the embarrassment of standing in a throng of people who were mopping up my blood with 1-ply bathroom paper towels. I later asked my mom what the lady meant, and she said:
"Superstitious people think it's an unlucky day. You can thank your lucky stars we aren't superstitious people."
Yup. I heard it, too. There weren't unlucky days, but there were lucky stars? Hmmm. From then on, I noticed every time a Friday the 13th would roll around, you know, in case I WAS a superstitious person, after all.
May 13, 1983: Friday the 13th. My senior year of high school. I was the editor of the yearbook, and the yearbooks were set to be delivered on Friday the 13th, and I couldn't sleep, wondering if bad luck would thwart the delivery. The boxes arrived. The books were distributed. Apparently, I was not a superstitious person.
May 13, 1996: Monday. The day after Mothers Day. I was married with three kids. We didn't go home to see our mothers, because our one-year-old was sick. Instead, we called and talked with our moms on the phone on Mothers Day. I remember ending the call with "I love you mom. Talk to you later." But those parting words ended up being a lie, because on Monday, May 13, she passed away. My sister called to break the news. It felt like the most unlucky of unlucky days that had ever occurred in the history of unlucky days.
May 13, 2017: Saturday. Last year. I had worked really hard to finish my first series before we took our first family trip to Hawaii. The first book was to be released while we were in Hawaii, and I was planning to sit on the beach and ignore Amazon while it played out back home. Only, on the way to the airport, I got an email that said "Congratulations! Your book is live!" What? Today? I scrambled to write a quick press release at the gate before we boarded, and looked at the date on my phone. May 13. My book was releasing on the 21st anniversary of my mom's death? That couldn't be good. That sounded super unlucky, as in, the woman who would care the very most that I accomplished a goal, the woman who would be proudest of me before she even read one page, the woman I couldn't share it with, the woman who would never read it, or give me feedback, or be tactfully honest about it, was never ever going to hold it in her hands. Super unlucky.
May 13, 2018: This Sunday. Mothers Day. The one-year anniversary of my publish date. The 22nd anniversary of my mother's death. And Mothers Day, the day I feel the guiltiest about not going home to see my mother before she died (along with feeling guilty about all the other reasons Mothers Day makes me feel guilty.)
It is the TRIFECTA of UNLUCKINESS!
We are going on a camping trip this weekend with our children and grandchildren. It is our second annual David & Jana Longhurst Reunion. And guess what? I am going to play with my grandkids and enjoy my family, and thank my lucky stars, because, as my mother said, "We are NOT superstitious people."
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