Anniversary date

A year ago I got to meet Tamara, my son Ben's new girl friend, and Ben and I went to Rushville to pick her up and then on to Springfield to play on my day off. We didn't make it home that night, because a man named Mark Young had a fight with his wife about his adultery. And then he headed to his 3rd shift job. I am sure he often made that drive from his home in Petersburg IL to Springfield IL where he worked and I have no doubt he knew the road and the normal traffic conditions on those drives.
But he had been involved in what probably was a bitter fight with a wife of many years and his mind was not on his driving, he chose to pass when the conditions were bad, he chose to not try to minimize the impact of the car in the on-coming lane, or he just didn't notice, or care or --well, he's been dead a year now, we won't get a lot more answers than we have now.
And I am finally released from my surgeon who, with his great staff, put a lot of time and work into helping me have as much recovery as I have had in the past year. So, now State Farm can start getting things done for that accident settlement and all those medical bills paid and off my back.
And I won't be out on the roads tonight, or go to Springfield, I was there yesterday and yesterday I also spent some time with the pal Carl, who while I was sitting on the floor with shoes and socks off, so he could see the difference in my feet now, was told there is a very noticeable difference in the length of my legs from that position, ya, I know, at least 1/2 inch. He thinks more. I think I walk funny/different and will live with what can't be changed.
He is 1 of the few people who really 'get' what I am saying when I say this has changed me profoundly, he had that huge life changing event at 26 when he suddenly became a widowed father of a small boy due to a bacterial infection that couldn't be detected in his young wife until it was too late to save her life.
So, ya, those changes that we can't put into words or explain, he's been there and does understand and does know, as I do, that I will be a while figuring out how and what all 'inside' has changed.
There are some pains/hurts that never go away, you just learn to live with them. That's something he said yesterday..his son is grown with children of his own, but that girl and all she meant, the gaping hole her passing left, after over 34+ years, it is still a loss that hurts.
And it's ok if I have some emotional pain and hurt that doesn't go away, that I find ways to live with and go on, it's what we do.
But today, I am alive, I am back to work and off work today, my normal schedule, and there's a paycheck in the bank , some errands here in town to run, some bills to get paid, it's still cold out but the most of the streets are bare now, the roads are good, we still have snow covering the ground but it is winter.
And tomorrow we work, which means I will see Carl at work, trips to the coffee maker in the boiler room, the razing of the crew about our personal relationship, which is our business and not theirs...and my talk will be about the doctor appointment and the dog, and that Jake's leave won't be until mid-Feb. Silly nosy guys in red bump caps, they don't need to know what is or isn't going on in my personal life, or Carl's but they will still bug us...