Lucky, lucky

My dear Dad used to say, with a twist of his thin lips, "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all." On the other side of the flipped coin, I have a friend whose favourite phrase is, "The harder I work, the luckier I get!"

I've been thinking about luck a lot lately, after hearing from another friend about the big inheritance she has coming. She was lucky enough to be born into a wealthy family. The money's not coming any time soon, but someday, and she figures there's enough of it that she doesn't have to worry about paying off her line of credit or her mortgage while she takes trips all over the world.

I think about her and then I think about the thousands of people moving to Canada from refugee camps in Turkey and Lebanon over the next month - the lucky ones.

The people in the refugee camps were lucky enough to be able and know how to pay the necessary bribes to get to those camps when the bombs came raining down on their homes and their neighbours and relatives were murdered.

They were lucky enough to survive years in the camp; lucky to have a metabolism that can survive on about 500 calories a day, and now, they have won the lottery and get to come to Canada.

They are lucky to have the chance to come to a safe but cold country where they don't speak the language and the food will be very, very weird. They have lost their families, their homes, everything, likely including any inheritance, and definitely their dignity, but they're the lucky ones, the ones who survived, who got out and get a lucky chance to start again.

All from the luck of where and to whom they were born.