I had a cat named Karma once. I adopted it from the campus of a local college where it was feral and hunted by animal control. The cat was no end of trouble for me. I do believe she hated me. I kept thinking that I deserved better for saving her, but I never got it from her. Karma would hold that my kindness went toward the sum total of my actions and would ultimately play a role in what the future would return to me. Maybe.
I have long said that I have the best bad luck of anyone I know. It happened again this week. I answered the call from yet another geezer in need and spent a week with my brother's ill widow, 15 years my senior. She lives 400 miles away, and as I get older, my desire to drive on busy interstates under construction lessens and my anxiety at doing so rises. Also, such travels cost me and I can ill afford extra costs. But I went.
While there, my tire indicator switched on. The sidewall on one tire was failing. I needed a new tire. The good news in that was that against all odds, a mechanic neighbor checked out the situation, recommended a good shop, and told me that only one tire would be needed if I rotated all the tires. So, while it still cost almost $200, the shop found a matching tire in less than 24-hours and did not delay my return home. More importantly, this did not happen on the road.
Then I get home, unload my car, and sleep in my own wonderful bed. In the morning I go out to buy some groceries, finding those I left inedible. Dead battery. On the drive home I stopped only once, though I usually stop twice. I almost made the extra stop but I was so anxious to get home, I just pushed through. Had I made that extra stop, I would have been stuck. My dead battery would have likely have required a tow and more money had I needed to replace it along the way.
See? Good bad luck. My tire could have blown while driving in heavy traffic at 70 miles an hour. My battery could have stranded me at some Podunk hamburger joint. Instead, I made it home OK.
Karma, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder. My old cat hated me, but any number of other rescued animals have paid me in love far beyond my karma account's plus column. I have taken care of all my elderly relatives at one time or another, some for years, one or two at great expense. I cannot say I was paid back, tit for tat. I can say that after a long marriage and difficult divorce, and giving up entirely on finding love and an equal life partner, that is exactly what happened and for 20+ years my significant other has supported me in all I have wanted to do - from building a pottery studio for me, to helping me keep my house when the recession threatened. My children grew up and are decent, smart, loving people who want me in their lives. My grandchildren give me much love and enjoyment.
Karma, if it exists, does not give cash payouts or pop up and change one's dead battery. However, if one lives by the rule of love and kindness to all, one draws into one's own circle the same love and kindness and when the inevitable happens, it may be mitigated by the return of this love and kindness we call Karma.
I don't believe in luck, either, but by saying I have the best bad luck, I can express this mitigation I am grateful to have experienced time and time again. If we are what we eat, perhaps we have what we do. This week, I feel like I have everything I need. Some people say Karma's a bitch. I say she is a gracious lady.
