Home.
It’s where the heart is.
Songs like “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “Homeward Bound” attempt to capture the “mystique” of the place.
Or maybe, to borrow a line from the TV show “Cheers”, “It’s where everyone knows your name”.
Maybe I’m just feeling nostalgic as I write because the time is nearing for me to head back “home” for the annual golf outing with my dad and brother. We’ve been getting together for 30+ years now, but this year it’s going to be “different”.
Why?
Dad had a health scare and most likely won’t be recovered fully; which meant cancelling the 3 days of resort golf. Instead, we’re going to work on projects around the house. We usually clean the chimney, so I know we’ll be doing that. I think I heard something about painting the eaves/fascia and there’s always a tree or two that needs to be cut/stacked into firewood. I’m sure he’ll have a list ready.
But what about the golf?
There’s talk of us (my brother, my nephew, and I) going “over the mountain” for a day to play the course. We have to go. We need to go. We’re simply “not ready to let go”. I’m not sure we ever will be. If/when the time to “let go” arrives we’re hoping for it to be on “our terms”, not Father Times’.
Why?
I’ll tell you why…that golf course is like a “second/vacation home”. I’ve written about Springdale Country Club & Resort before (“Home Is…” August 7), so I won’t repeat myself here. It’s just a “special place” full of “special memories”.
Will dad go? Can’t answer that. Depends on how his recovery is progressing and if he even wants to go. We’d love him to go, even if it’s just to ride in the cart.
Why wouldn’t he want to go?
Because age has a way of catching up with you. No matter how hard you try to keep it from happening, it happens.
My brother and I recently realized something. Sure, we’ve both gotten older, but we’re still playing the “same game” we’ve been playing for years. Yes, maybe some of the shots require more club, but we’re almost always in the same locations hitting pretty much the same shots we’ve hit year after year after year.
This is not so for my dad. As he’s aged, his drives do not have the same distance. He doesn’t hit his irons with the same “crispness”. He can no longer play the “same game” he played years ago. We think the course has become “too long” for him from the white tees and he reluctantly plays the shorter gold tees. And this frustrates him. Frustrates him very much. Frustrates him even more then we’ll ever know. Maybe “frustrates” isn’t the correct word. I think it “eats/gnaws at him” that he isn’t the same vigorous man he was in his “youthful years”.
After realizing this, my brother and I determined we’re selfish. When talk turns to Springdale, he & I feel like it’s our “fountain of youth”. We go there, golf, drink, and just unwind; which is all good. But we forgot about how dad may feel. It’s gotta be difficult for him to continue returning to a place year after year after year and face his “younger self”; comparing where he currently hits the ball to where & how he played the course in the past. It’s gotta be like battling a ghost or maybe feeling like you’re a “shell of your former self”.
The funny thing, though, is, my brother and I have discussed this at great length. What happens when dad no longer is physically able or lacks the desire to go – what happens to the outing then?
The outing to us “is tradition”. Dad started it with us. We want to continue “the tradition” – in one form or another – as long as we can. That’s why this year my brother is bringing his son, my nephew. It’s an opportunity to breathe “new life” into an “old tradition”. A chance for 3 generations of Lab men to golf together. Will the tradition continue? Only time will tell.
Fortunately, my dad is expected to make a full recovery. We have told him the alternative is totally unacceptable. He needs us now, like we needed him then.
What I learned through all of this -> you may think you’re prepared for the end of something, but no matter how prepared you think you are, you’ll never be prepared enough. And you never can be. It’s impossible to be. Impossible.
Sometimes it takes something hitting “close to home” to make you realize that.
Hit this one a little too hard! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Dan’s View 