By April, going to the driving range had become part of our routine. The improvements were small, but they were just big enough to keep two determined and competitive people coming back.
A couple nights a week, we’d load the clubs into the Lexus and head to the range after work.
On April 7th, we did exactly that.
We never made it to the driving range.
As we were heading down the highway around 5:30 that evening, we approached an intersection with a green light. A vehicle in the opposite turn lane pulled out in front of us. It wasn’t an especially risky move, and I remember saying something to Katie like, “Why turn now when there’s nobody behind us?”
That wasn’t the vehicle we needed to be worried about.
The vehicle behind it appeared to simply follow the first car into the intersection.
If you’ve ever been in a serious accident, you know that strange half-second when your brain is trying to convince you this isn’t actually happening.
Then it does.
The collision.
Airbags exploding in your face.
The violent jolt as everything comes to a stop.
And then those few seconds where all you can think is:
What the hell just happened?
It all happened incredibly fast, yet somehow felt like it was unfolding in slow motion.
The first thing I did was look at Katie.
As I asked if she was okay, the car began announcing that we had been in a collision and that emergency services were being contacted. Katie was shaken, but thankfully she seemed okay.
I was shaken too, but once I knew neither of us had any obvious serious injuries, the adrenaline kicked in.
I got out of the vehicle and went to check on the driver who had hit us.
She was still sitting in her car and was visibly shaken, just like we were.
Fortunately, all three of us walked away from what had been a pretty violent collision.
After a few minutes, the three of us were standing outside our vehicles trying to process what had just happened and how none of us were seriously injured.
I’d be lying if I said Katie and I didn’t have the exact same thought at the same time:
“Did our clubs survive?”
I popped the trunk and, thankfully, they looked a lot better than we did.
Nothing too crazy happened afterward. The fire department and police arrived, statements were taken, and a witness confirmed what had happened. The other driver was cited.
Our daughter came and picked us up, and we watched as Katie’s nearly new Lexus—with just over 5,000 miles on it—was loaded onto a tow truck.
As much as it sucked seeing it smashed up, I realized something.
Cars can be replaced.
We can’t.
Earlier in my life, I might not have looked at it that way. This time felt different. I felt like we had really dodged a bullet.
On the drive home, as we were telling our daughter what had happened, I looked down and noticed one of the knuckles on my left hand had turned blue and was sticking out at a pretty odd angle.
We hadn’t planned on getting checked out, but at that moment we decided maybe we should.
By the time we got to the waiting room, the adrenaline was starting to wear off.
That’s when the pain started showing up.
It felt like we had both gone a few rounds with a heavyweight boxer.
No matter how we sat, something hurt. Our necks hurt. Our backs hurt. Everything was stiff and sore.
Thankfully, after getting examined, we were told there were no broken bones or other serious injuries. The doctor told us we were lucky to have been in a collision that violent and not only walk away from it, but walk away without any broken bones.
Within a couple of days we were both seeing a chiropractor and starting the slow process of getting back to normal.
The one thing neither of us wanted to do, though, was stop golfing.
That upcoming weekend was supposed to be our first trailer trip of the year. We had planned three nights at Swinomish Casino and multiple rounds of golf.
I suggested cancelling.
Katie wasn’t interested in that idea at all.
After talking with the chiropractor and getting reassurance that we weren’t likely to make things worse, we decided to stick with the plan.
Months earlier, we had booked several trips with the trailer, and this was supposed to be the first of many golf and travel weekends that summer. Neither of us wanted the accident to cancel what felt like the beginning of something we had been looking forward to for months.
We had been planning those trips for months, and neither of us wanted to cancel what felt like the beginning of our golf and travel adventures.
So off we went to Anacortes.
If I’m being honest, there wasn’t much that was fun about that trip.
Packing hurt.
Hooking up the trailer hurt.
Walking hurt.
Golf hurt.
Even sitting around too long hurt.
The only real bright spot came when we were sitting outside the trailer overlooking Padilla Bay.
At least there we could relax for a while.
There was one other positive.
This time the course had carts available because things had dried out a bit since our last visit.
For those of you that are not familiar with Swinomish it’s a pretty bumpy golf course. At that point, some of those bumps hurt almost as much as swinging the clubs.
We got through the weekend.
And even though it wasn’t nearly as magical as we had imagined it would be, I’m glad we went.
It would have been easy to stay home.
Instead, we were out there together, sore as hell, doing our best to make the most of a pretty rough situation.
The pain from the accident was frustrating enough.
But it was also forcing me to confront something I had been avoiding for a long time.
My knees had been giving me problems for years. My weight wasn’t helping, and deep down I knew something eventually had to change.
I just didn’t know yet how much it was going to change.
Looking back, my body had been trying to tell me something for a long time.
I was finally starting to listen.
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