COMMENTARY
On life’s journey, we make our own luck
By MARY SANCHEZ


Class - not just race - is to blame for separate and unequal schools
Saturday — the much-anticipated “luckiest” day — arrived with me feeling not very lucky at all. I don’t believe in luck, at least not the sort of dropped-from-the-sky brand that so many people reached for that day: 07-07-07.

Suffice it to say, “bad luck” had nothing to do with the feeling of that morning. Nor, would any measure of “good luck” take me through the day’s events: a dinner in honor of a colleague who died recently, a career essay to write and a wedding.

Seemingly disparate events, but all filled with examples of why I view it folly to bank on something as indiscriminate as luck. I find that people who believe desperately in luck often cling to the hope that all will work out despite doing anything to ensure it. Take people who insist they are “down on their luck” as opposed to admitting a series of mistakes.

So, to me, there is nothing unlucky about what killed one of the finest reporters who ever worked for this newspaper, Greg Reeves. ALS got him. His father died of it; so it was probably genetics. ALS took his father’s life within a few short years. ALS took Greg’s life in less than a year.

He may have willed that: His daughter said he most wanted not to suffer like his father had. That is also a nod to the incredible strength of Greg’s mind. There are people walking around with journalism’s highest awards because of his intelligence — either the work Greg did crunching data on the computer so they could write their investigative pieces, or work they produced after he taught them how to do it. One such journalist, now a valued staffer at The Washington Post, attended Saturday’s dinner.

I’ve found that many people’s first reaction when I mention Greg’s quick demise, at the age of 57, is, “What horrible luck!”

Thankfully, he did not see it that way. His was not a “Tuesdays With Morrie” quiet acceptance; it was more like Hunter S. Thompson going down with a vengeance. As the disease took more of his mobility, Greg’s brilliant mind developed gadgetry to help him turn on the TV, the radio, the stove, to help him get dressed, and eat and drink as he desired. He was going to do the things he wanted to do, for as long as he could ingeniously figure out how.

Vises and knobs and a soldering iron were involved; he was lovingly aided in creating the contraptions by a longtime reporter/friend.

It was not because of my own bad luck that I did not see Greg in his final days. “Don’t wait,” I was warned by a colleague, for the disease was progressing quickly. And so, I waited. The day before I left town on a business trip, he was gone.

I thought about Greg as I wrote the career essay, much of it geared to the direction newspapers are heading. He was, more than any other reporter I know, attuned to the changes this industry should have made decades ago. He latched on to the Internet while most reporters were saying “Google?”

In other words, he did not wait for “luck” to come his way and reshape his job; he made himself indispensable by his computer knowledge.

On the dozens of career panels in which I’ve participated, you can always spot audience members who believe in the magical, nonexistent ability of luck to shape their careers. They prompt, “Right time, right place, right?” “Happened to meet the right people?” “Got lucky with that first story and impressed the right person, right?” No, I’ve been well-prepared more often than I was not.

The wedding I attended — or rather the reception, by the time I arrived after Greg’s dinner — was for one of the many couples who chose July 7, 2007 for their special day. Thankfully, they are both well-grounded enough not to insist that simply getting married on a day filled with sevens will ensure marital bliss.

They know an 07-07-07 wedding date holds nothing to the magic words of healthy relationships. Liberal doses of “I forgive you” and “I am sorry” when getting through turmoil is far more important than wallowing in it.

People tend to do two things while waiting for “luck” to sweep them away toward a happy life. They slow down and barely participate, allowing the days to pass as if on the moving walkway at the airport. Or, they speed up in a rush to do, do, do — while taking in very little.

So 07-07-07 ended well, but not necessarily “lucky” for me. There are no lucky days and unlucky days, but opportunities for a million decisions. You get your serving of life and simply go.



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Mary Sanchez is a nationally syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services. Read her Tribune column on Tuesdays on The Star’s Web site, KansasCity.com. Today she writes about segregated schools.
To reach Mary Sanchez, call 816-234-4752 or send e-mail to msanchez @kcstar.com
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