Rear view

I am 61, I am a veteran, I have seen third world, I have been blessed to grow up in a place and a time when my friends were just that, my friends, no color, no economic strata, I have worked very hard my whole adult life, I have a destroyed spine but press on, I have responsibilities, I hurt 27/7 and I do hate the pain and when my legs turn to stone beneath me, I smoked for 45 years, I came very close to death due to a freak intestinal issue and spent 8 days on such heavy duty pain meds in the hospital I was hallucinating and in paranoid agony, I left the hospital as a weakened shell but I don’t smoke anymore, PLEASE DON’T SMOKE OR VAPE, it ain’t cool and it will rob your life, SMOKERS DO NOT GO OUT WITH A BANG,THEY GO WITH A GASP, I have been married for almost ever, I should not have married when and why I did, sympathy or guilt for someone else’s issues are NEVER good reasons and they NEVER become good reasons, marriage is a beautiful thing but is not a guarantee to a happy fulfilling life, at 22 I thought I knew so much, at 18 I left my home to Texas for basic training, then to Homestead Fla. and then to Korea, I lived 3 lifetimes in those 4 years, I thought I was so worldly, I wasn’t, my father was a career Army officer and I now wish I had gotten to know this man, I so wish I had a chance to go back and learn from him, God I do so wish that, I think he and his brother had been molested by their parish priest back in the 20’s and 30’s, I believe he carried that enormous stone his whole life, he was an alcoholic, a functional never miss work never hurt the family always respectable alcoholic, but one all the same, he met my mom while