It is impossible to separate my concept of “luck” from the memory of my grandmother’s house. There, four-leaf clovers lay threaded into tablecloths and baked onto porcelain teacups. Ceramic leprechauns winked from bric-a-brac shelves. Pillows, cross-stitched in Celtic font, proclaimed aggressively Irish clichés, rooted in providence: Kiss Me I’m Irish! The Luck of the Irish! When Irish Eyes Are Smiling!
Raised amid such strong propaganda, I became a believer. Myriad moments in my life, it seemed, could be explained by the universe’s magical lottery: after an initial rejection, admission to my dream college. That rent-controlled apartment I’d lost out on, then snagged. And surely the greatest pot of gold: meeting my future husband in an Irish pub, on St. Patrick’s Day itself.
Each March, our eldest daughter asks me to recount our tale of marital luck. And so, I tell her about the packs of people — so hard to imagine in this moment of social distancing and sequestration. I tell her about the cute gentleman I noticed by the bar. I leave out our collective inebriation on a Friday afternoon. Instead, the gist: Of all the bars in all of D.C., this man walked into mine.
I don’t expressly mention luck in these retellings. But it is everywhere. It was even in our wedding song, played just two years later. We swayed to Ben Folds’ “The Luckiest,” bathed in the marbled rose of a perfect August sunset. The idea of an outdoor ceremony had appalled our wedding vendor. She’d warned of thunderstorms, sweltering guests. I’d scoffed. The day would be perfect, as charmed as our “meet-cute.” My daughter tugs off my wedding band, which she turns on her slim thumb before tilting to squint at the words engraved for our 10-year anniversary: I am the luckiest.
Quintessential “Irish luck” formed the seed from which our little family sprouted. And yet, amid that harvest, I’m rethinking that notion of luck. Poking holes. Plucking the fourth leaf. Not due to some string of personal bad luck. Rather, I’ve realized that when someone has that much good fortune, the system might well be rigged.
My kids are growing up white and middle-class, just like I did. What we have isn’t the result of luck, but racial and economic disparities acting in our favor. And so, as we prepare to celebrate that high holiday of good fortune this year, I’ve made a resolution: No longer will we talk of “good luck,” which people often say when they really mean “privilege,” or “bad luck,” which often stands in for systems of inequity.
Like an English major pointing out Alanis Morissette’s wanting examples of irony, I see now that much of my “luck” was just success accruing to the successful. My college acceptance? A family friend — an alum of that college — petitioned the school to reconsider my application. The rent-controlled apartment? When the applicant ahead of me was unexpectedly rejected, I was ready with a deposit and a completed application — the cash and the strategy both thanks to my realtor mom.
And what about my greatest fortune? When two people meet in a chance encounter, is that not the very definition of “luck”? In truth: I was in a bar at 3 p.m. on a Friday because I’d quit my job. With all the hubris of an entitled millennial, I’d left an unfulfilling role before securing a new one, knowing that, if I fell short on rent, I could borrow money from my parents. Isn’t that the very definition of privilege?
But even as I reframe past examples, I catch myself still speaking in the present-day parlance of luck. My daughters attend a charter school that operates an admission lottery. “We won the lottery!” I remark, before catching myself. We landed a winning number, but can I call it luck? The families with a nonwinning number weren’t unlucky; they were failed by a system that didn’t have enough good options for 80,000 kids.
I ask my daughter what she thinks of luck. I expect talk of finding a quarter on the ground, or opening the exact LOL doll she’d been hoping for. Instead, she tells me rather matter-of-factly: “It’s when I get something that someone else doesn’t have.” She is 8, but already she is learning to see privilege and luck as one and the same. I am mortified.
The idea that “luck” might merely be privilege in disguise is, to many in my family, heresy. Perhaps it is our Irishness, some deep allegiance to the whims of providence. Perhaps it’s easier to believe life is beyond our control. To welcome good luck, I have observed, is acceptable. A helping hand from the universe. But if I attribute that bit of fortune to privilege — white privilege, no less — then I’m met with an instant eye roll. I become a liberal snowflake telling others that they didn’t really earn what they have. At best, I diminish someone else’s bootstraps. At worst, I belittle those who provided me with my boots. (Read: my parents.)
Luck? As Irish-American as a four-leaf clover.
Privilege? How dare you.
Still, I begin teaching my children something that took me too many decades to learn. In a pandemic that has claimed hundreds of thousands of American lives, we haven’t been spared by luck. We’ve been spared by statistics, immunized by a fortress of privileges that allow us to hunker down with health care and an Amazon Prime subscription. My children can stave off the learning loss because one parent is a former teacher and was able to take a pay cut to prioritize their education.
If my children deem themselves lucky, I’ll think I failed them a little. They should feel grateful for all they receive, yes, but also incensed that so many others have been denied the same. And then they must go out there and do something about it.
Once upon a time, two people walked into a bar on St. Patrick’s Day. Fifteen years later, their three daughters will celebrate with Lucky Charms for breakfast. No doubt a few leprechauns will evade their traps. Those merry pranksters will certainly leave some cheeky trail of destruction in their wake. Last year, they dumped our shoes on the floor and stole a fair bit of loose change. I hope it will be a day filled with love and magic. Certainly, it will be filled with laughter.
Because when I zoom out on that meet-cute, it isn’t really a story of luck, anyway. This was not two people catching each other’s eyes from across a crowded room; not two hands reaching for the same pint glass, followed by blushes and fumbling introductions. My husband and his friends huddled on stools, laughing as if no one else existed. He’d never have caught my eye — he wasn’t even looking. No, we had something far more reliable than the hands of fate. We had friends.
I tell my daughter how, after I pointed out the guy I’d spotted, Aunt Susie promptly grabbed me by the hand and walked over to him. How Uncle Mikey vouched for this boy’s character. How members of both teams stood on the sidelines, watching an introduction turn into hours of conversation. They created a cove around us, a safe harbor for two ships that otherwise may have passed in the night. They lingered, long after they’d planned, so that we two could stay moored in that place, together. So that we could begin. That devotion was its own privilege, but a far better kind.
Maggie Master is a writer based in Baltimore. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun and other publications. She also writes novels for young adults.
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