Show and Tell

Today was “Show and Tell” at work.  I work in a private school. We get to do things like this. It was our very first back-to-work activity before kids arrive next week.

I was somewhere in the middle of the group and I had plenty of time to see what others decided to share. 

They brought out photos and crafts their kids had made. They showed us recipes and talked about the irony of writing a secret recipe down. They talked about family jewelry and one fabulous story about a family with Welsh origins whose ancestors once burned a castle down. But they got theirs when their family home was burned to the ground in the Revolution. As he told that story, he unfurled a flag emblazoned with his family crest-a castle on fire. 

I clutched my neon yellow golf ball just a little bit tighter. 

My turn came. I chose not to stand. Some did. I just held out my hand and uncurled my fingers. It wasn't even a clean golf ball.

If I open the trunk of my car, there's a pretty good chance golf balls will come rolling out. Once my clubs shifted on the drive to the course and the whole bag landed in the parking lot.  Rookie mistakes. Because I'm just learning how to play. 

I'd waited all winter to learn how to play. I tried once when I was 29 or 30 but broke up with the guy who was teaching me. I kept the clubs. They were already antiques and he didn't care. I just shuffled them along basement to basement to basement  for the next twenty years. 

But then my brother got sick. He’s a good golfer. Maybe even very good. Tall and lean with the confidence of an life-long athlete. Some people can make a golf swing look like ballet.  He could do that. Not that I'd ever actually seen him swing a golf club at that point. 

As the winter and his chemo treatments lingered on, we talked about golf. I’d ask, “Is it time yet?”

“No, it's too cold. Let it get to 70 at least,” he would say while he massaged his hands cold with neuropathy. 

“Take some lessons.”

So I did. I took two lessons and then I got some help buying the most beautiful set of golf clubs, a bag that weighs almost nothing and a whole lot of neon yellow golf balls. Unpacking them felt like Christmas. 

I made a pest of myself at the local driving range. They knew my name.  They all knew my name. I had no idea what I was doing but I kept going anyway. I watched golf videos in bed at night.

I took a couple more lessons. 

“Is it time yet?”

“Almost.” He started feeling better. 

The weather was getting warmer. The CT scans came back clear. 

“Is it time yet?”

“Yes.”

We met at his house. My father made the third and we drove to a local course. 

We got a cart but I walked. I was in the best shape of the three. My brother tried to get his hands to cooperate.  My father sat under a tree on the third hole and called it a day. It wasn't as easy as it had been once. He was tired and couldn't get the ball to do what he wanted it to do. 

I lost a couple of golf balls. Just lost them. Like they evaporated into thin air. I'm not sure how that happens. They were right there.  And then they were gone. 

But I had more. So I’d put another one down and try not to send it careening into the woods or into a muddy bog. 

We finished. All three of us. My dad finished sooner but we all finished. 

I golfed some more.  I played with friends I hadn't seen in a long while. I played with my brother and father again.  His hands cooperating more. I didn't lose as many golf balls and my father’s competitive nature had him buying a season’s pass to the golf course.  

He told stories of being a caddy when he was a kid. Monday nights were Caddy Nights. The caddies got to use the facilities for free. He expressed zero remorse beating kids who wagered their bikes on a golf game and then riding home on the bike he'd won. I enjoyed seeing that side of him. 

I played golf three times with an aunt that lives 630 miles away. We love everything about this sport. The clothes. The civility. The clubhouses. A martini in the clubhouse at Pinehurst was a summer highlight. Before golf we would go years without seeing each other. 

I started my show and tell by explaining I was 52 and at 52, some things can't wait anymore. Sometimes you need something to shoot for, a reason to get up again. And I showed them my dirty golf ball.

Summers feel as fleeting as shooting stars.  A summer day is something to savor. A summer day sharing a toast with your brother who gets a hole in one? That's perfection. 

Even if you didn't get to play and actually see it happen because you forgot your golf shoes (another rookie mistake). It did happen and that's the stuff family stories are made of. Castles on fire and crafts your kids made. Family jewelry and yes, golf balls.