Call it luck, kismet or fate or whatever you like, but something caused Betty Aughtman-Patterson to walk outside her Gantt Lake home and find a five-leafed clover.

Yes, you read that right – a five-leafed clover, which according to folklore is even more rare than a four-leafed clover, the traditional Irish symbol of good luck.

Patterson called her find “pure happiness.”

“You see, my husband, Crayton, died a year ago this month,” Patterson said. “He was a disabled vet, serving in Saigon where the heaviest loads of Agent Orange fell. He was a severe diabetic, too. He went quick, but it devastated me.”

Since then, Patterson has been battling a debilitating depression – that is, until Wednesday when a quick trip to the yard changed her life, she said.

“The depression was bad,” she said. “He was my soul mate, the love of my life. We had 14 ½ wonderful years together, and when he died, I felt like I did too.

“I was putting birdseed in the feeders when I remembered how much he liked four-leafed clovers,” she said. “I decided to go out and look for one. When I saw it, I couldn’t believe it. This one had five, and one of them shaped like a perfect heart.”

And that’s when she felt her heart heal a bit, she said.

“I knew right then, he was looking out for me, telling me things were going to be OK,” Patterson said. “When I found it, it was like a burden had been lifted. That night I got the best sleep I’d had in a year. For the first time since he died, I woke up happy.”

Patterson said her find was proof that God works in mysterious ways.