The dress that went round

A seamstress in Damanhour made a wedding dress for a neighbour's daughter. The bride's photographs went round more family phones than anyone expected, and within a month the seamstress had more orders than she could sew.

Ask her how the business grew, and she talks about her stitching, her patterns, her patience with difficult brides. All of it is true. She does not mention the photographs.

It is a common silence. People who do well rarely want to talk about the part that was luck.

Some of it is superstition. If the lucky break is never looked at too closely, perhaps it will not disappear. Some of it is a belief that good fortune is scarce, that there is only so much to go around, and keeping quiet about where it came from keeps it safe.

And some of it is pride. It is more comfortable to believe that everything earned was earned by skill, even when we know that is not the whole story. Skill was needed. It was not sufficient. A great many talented seamstresses never had a bride whose photographs travelled.

Guarding luck like this has a cost. It makes the success look like a closed door, when it was really an open one that happened to swing her way.

She could tell the young woman sewing alone two streets over exactly what happened. Which bride, which photographs, which families passed them on. None of that would take anything from her own skill. It might give someone else a door to stand near.

Luck that stays hidden helps one person. Luck that is named can be passed along.