The first day of the New Year reminded me a little more vividly than perhaps I would have cared for of how dramatically our lives can change and, possibly, end in an instant.

I was driving my older son to Logan Airport in Boston, where he had an 8 am flight that would take him back to Los Angeles. My daughter had returned to Los Angeles earlier in the week and my younger son had left the day before to attend a Phish concert in New York before eventually returning to Washington, D.C. It had been a great holiday visit, but I was, of course, a little sad to see everyone leave.

We left early on Friday morning, expecting a quiet ride in but not sure of how busy the airport would be the morning after New Year’s Eve. We were traveling eastbound on the Mass Pike, about two miles shy of the Cambridge/Alston toll when it happened.

Like a bullet that hits its target before the sound of the shot is even heard, there was a car, a very large white car (I think it might have been a Lincoln) shooting past me at maybe 90 miles an hour. Only problem was the car was in an eastbound lanes – and traveling west!

The car was alongside me in a flash and then nearly out of sight two seconds later. If that car had been traveling in the center lane, as I was, and not in the passing lane to my left, well...

There had been no time to react. I don’t know what the reaction time is for a vehicle traveling at 90 mph one way and 65 mph the other way to avoid a head-on collision, but it’s got to be miniscule. I read afterward that most wrong way drivers get in the passing lane, thinking it’s the slow lane, and that in order to avoid a crash, you should turn to the right. Of course, that depends on the time you have to first realize the car is headed straight for you and to then do something about it.

After calling 911, we proceeded on to the airport where my son checked in and later took off. I headed back to Concord.

Later that day I joined friends from the Maynard Elks to take a “polar plunge” in Marshfield at Rexhame beach as part of an annual fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project, sponsored by the Marshfield Elks. It’s a great event and I stayed in a little longer than most, not to prove anything but just to taste the salt on my tongue and feel the waves at my back.  Most of all, however, I was just happy to be there – and grateful for another day.