I suppose it’s always hard to see how special things are from deep within. I, like all of my cousins, took for granted that Grandma Elsie’s cookie jar would always be full, and the lazy susan in the bottom corner cupboard needed two hands to turn. (And I’m not talking about a little spinning spice rack, no, a lazy susan that could spin a small three to four year old into a dizzied frenzy.) My grandma stocked this beast of a susan with the entire Sugar family — Sugar Daddies, Sugar Mamas, and Sugar Babies. She also included the Black Cows, Slow Pokes, Junior mints, random candied corns and jelly beans depending on the season. There was not a mint or a lemon drop in sight. So when one of the girls in our jump roping gang at Washington Elementary began speaking disparagingly about her grandmother’s candy selection, I couldn’t believe it. When others chimed in, I dropped the rope to investigate further. No Sugar Babies? Not even a Slow Poke? No. Surely she offered you a rootbeer float from time to time. They laughed. 

It’s amazing what a little knowledge can do. I never twirled a jump rope the same. There was no need to flaunt it. It was my grandpa who taught me that. After arriving first in a race around the farmhouse with one of those sugar-fueled cousins, I ran to him bragging about my victory. He patted my shoulder. “It’s enough to win,” he said. 

Each afternoon recess, I quietly twirled the rope, deep in the knowledge that I was winning. 

From time to time, I can still get lost in the ample susan of my life, not seeing how special it is until life comes tripping with its little interruptions. And I see these breaks in fortune for what for what they really are — just little schoolgirls, telling me, showing me how lucky I truly am. I smile, and twirl in gratitude once again.