Michelle Goff, mystery writer

Last year, as in years past, I kept a blessings jar. As you might have deduced, every week I wrote a blessing on a slip of paper and placed the paper into a jar. (Well, actually it’s an aging popcorn tin.) And at the beginning of this year, I reviewed last year’s blessings.

Some of the blessings featured nature. For example, one week I included a tree I had passed billions of times on the way to my mom’s house yet had somehow never before noticed. I also made note of watching the river flow past the dentist’s office as I waited for him to come in and yank out a tooth.

There was the week I was grateful my car was still under warranty and, the following week, when I was grateful it was out of the car hospital and once again running well.

And then there was the week that my great-niece, aka the world’s most adorable kindergartner, told me my hair looked messy.

I had forgotten her proclamation until I reviewed the aforementioned blessings. If my memory is correct, she made the observation one weekend as we gathered in my mom’s parlor. What I can’t recall, however, is why I considered it a blessing.

Of course, there is the possibility that I deemed it a blessing simply because it came from her mouth. After all, I consider her daily declarations to be philosophical phenomena that should be shared far and wide. Indeed, I frequently send messages to friends that contain nothing but her musings on life.

Or it could be that I regarded her innocent remark as a blessing in disguise. Perhaps it spurred me to spiffy up my hair or to make an appointment with the hairdresser.

Regardless of why I scribbled the exchange on a scrap of paper so that it could be kept for posterity, its inclusion makes me question what else was going on in my life that week. Even if nothing exceptional happened in that seven-day period, one would think I would have at least enjoyed a good meal. After all, chicken nuggets comprised another week’s blessing. Or, baring good food, perhaps I would have taken a good nap, which showed up in two separate weeks’ blessings, or taken a good walk and/or run.

Nope. The best thing that happened that week was that a child insulted my hair.