Fortunate
We have come to equate “fortune” with a large sum of money
as in “that outfit must have cost a fortune!”
but its real meaning is more abstract than that.
Whenever the Roman goddess Fortuna “favored” someone
it meant that things went well for them,
as in the saying “Fortune favors the brave.”
Last week I was sick with the influenza virus
which made me cough and sleep, and not much else,
over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
It felt like this was an unfortunate turn of events,
at least until I found the online obituary
of a high school classmate of mine.
I saw his face for the first time in 35 years
and read about the wife and two children he left behind
simply because he may have caught a different virus than I did.
Suddenly, the “unfortunate” outcome I had experienced
didn’t seem so bad any more, in light of the outcome
that had befallen my classmate at the very same time.
So farewell to Jon Hergett, who I will always remember fondly,
and may his friends and loved ones always smile at his memory.
I’m no richer than I was last week, but also immensely fortunate.
