That dull ache

It happened earlier today when I was doing my weekly aquarium cleaning  and organizing.  I reached down into the pantry cupboard and pulled out some filters and felt the thud on my foot.  I must have dropped something on my big right toe while I was pulling out the filters.  When I looked down, I saw something a little unusual.  The X-acto knife I use to cut up the frozen food for my salt water fish was sticking upright from my big toe.  I kind of laughed and did a quick mental calculation of the likelihood, the probabilities, the statistics that guided that X-acto from the third shelf, tumbling over two or three times to land perfectly upright in a toe.  It was no small feat and not easily replicated I assure you.  But the knife did find its way into my foot,  I leaned over and gently tugged it out and could feel that the tip of the knife had lodged itself into the outer portion of the bone.

At this point, you might think that this is a emergency room story or a stitches story or something about someone passing out.  But its not, it has very little to do with the knife.  After a few quick swipes with antiseptic and some anti-bacterial cream, the indecent was over and I walked around with a very slight dull ache in my toe.  Those of you that have broken bones know the distinct feeling of the dull ache.  It's not the electric grip of a cramp in your calf that can wake you from a deep sleep or the sharp bite of a cut or throbbing itch of a bee sting, its a sensation all its own... the dull ache.  And as far as the minuscule X-acto point goes, my dull ache was as trivial as they come, yet it was there.  Not all the time, in fact, not most of the time just the every once in a while, when I would bump it or run up the stairs. And each time I felt the ache, I remembered that strange sight of an 8 inch stainless steel knife sticking straight up out of my toe.

And that's how things go now days.  Most of the time I live my life, I'm here and there, I work, I play and then I see something that reminds me and I bump it.  It's then I realize I'm living with the ache.  There's no emergency, no trauma, no blood, just the small dull ache that reminds me that he really is gone.   When someone moves into my inner circle and I find myself trying to describe his wit or how he could put you in the hot seat and keep you there, I feel the ache.  The ache that they will never know him and the ache that they will never ever fully understand who he was or the amazing life he lead.  When I see a Corona with lime, or zebra striped patterned furniture, I laugh, I reach down and have that silent moment of remembrance, and feel the ache.

It's a good ache.... it's one that reminds me that I'm alive, I survived.  I go on living my life and every once in a while the small ache reminds me that something completely unexpected, unlikely and statically impossible happened to me.  I met and became friends with an amazing man.  A once in a lifetime, X-acto knife falling from the third cupboard shelf into a toe kind of friendship.  A bond hard to calculate,  not easily repeated or replaced.  A friend who has passed on.....    It is a wonderful ache...