By Aron Carroll
We were sitting in a Wahlburgers restaurant when I got the scariest news of my life. My wife’s doctor called and told her that her biopsy had come back as cancer. You know in movies when a bomb goes off and the screen goes blurry and the sound drops out? That was what happened to me. I stumbled back to the table trying to find the words to tell the news to my parents and our daughters, but nothing came out. My wife, Meagan, simply repeated what the doctor said and grabbed her burger. When I asked her if she wanted to leave she responded with the single bravest thing I think I have ever heard someone say. She responded to me, “Why? I still have to eat.”
You may be trying to find the connection that lands this story on a golf site, and I don’t blame you. But Meg's words played in my head for her entire battle with cancer. “We have to live our lives” is what she was constantly telling me. Whether that meant going to church, the grocery store, or to the golf course, she wanted us to keep our lives as normal as possible.
But normal wasn’t going to be possible for me. How could it? How can I focus on making a 6 foot par putt when I can barely make it through a meeting at work without falling apart? Again, with the strength of Hercules she would respond, “because you have to.”
We found out her diagnosis almost two months before my annual golf trip. The trip I take is enough to make any golfer jealous, and it is the highlight of the golf calendar. The Silver Cup, as we call it, is played with sixteen guys, Ryder Cup style. I was hesitant to confirm my spot because of the fact that it’s played as a team event. I knew I wouldn’t have any sort of game to speak of. Between not wanting to leave my wife and kids and not wanting to let the other paying participants of the trip down, I decided not to play. My wife had other ideas though.
An important thing to note about this trip is that my dad also goes every year. In fact, he is one of the remaining original members. And when I told my dad my intention not to play, word got back to Meg. She insisted that I go and play. She told me that I needed to have some kind of release. And as selfish as I felt in that moment, she was right.
Before we actually went on the trip, I managed to play once or twice with my dad. One particular memory stands out in my mind. I had been playing fairly decent when I completely blew a pretty simple lay-up. My blood pressure rose, and I could feel the tears welling in my eyes. I looked over at my dad and was met with a soft smile and these words: “she’s going to be alright, Son.” That moment will stick with me until the day they lower me into the ground. For the first time, with anyone, I was able to finally let go of all the stress, fear, and anger that had been building up inside of me. I didn’t need to play golf that day. What I needed was to be outside of my home, where I could explore the feelings that I had, with someone who could help me handle them.
When the time came for me to leave for my trip, Meg had already received her first treatment and was handling it well. Well enough, in fact, that I still felt okay about leaving. It didn’t hurt that my mother in law was coming to stay with my family while I was gone. The first round I played was against a guy named Jimmy. We were off first which gave us the opportunity to drive back and watch the other matches finish up. Anyone that has ever gone on a golf trip will tell you that is one of the best experiences of any trip. I look forward to it each year. Both of our partners decided to stay on the 18th green instead of riding around and watching the matches, so I hopped in Jimmy’s cart and off we went. We stopped to watch some approach shots on one hole and Jimmy started talking. He told me that his wife and him were praying for Meg and for my family. He also told me that he loved me and that if I needed anything not to hesitate to reach out. I tried to hide the tears in my eyes and told him that I loved him too and that I appreciated his kind words.
Jimmy wasn’t alone in the well wishes that week. To a man, every single one of those guys pulled me aside and told me something similar. But it was the way that Jimmy spoke to me and that setting that I will always remember. Up until that point I was the youngest in the group by quite a wide margin. These were my dad’s friends first, but they had welcomed me and I had developed my own friendships with them. And Jimmy had always been particularly gracious. To this day I don’t think he knows how significant of a moment that was for me.
About two weeks after our trip, my dad called me and told me that he needed surgery. Nothing serious, but he wanted to know if I would be able to sub for him in his golf league. By this point I think you can tell what my wife thought, and so I agreed to play for him. His partner is a friend of our family named Jay. Now Jay is my dad’s best friend and the person he plays the most golf with. My dad is retired and Jay has a job that affords some flexibility in his schedule, so needless to say they’re on the golf course quite a bit. I think of Jay as a big brother and love him like one.
Our first two weeks playing together were perfect. We always have a good time when we play together. I try and make him laugh and he tries to get me to stop thinking without falling asleep. But after our first two weeks, my dad said he needed more time to recover. I knew what he was doing. He was fine to play, but he could tell that Jay and I were having a good time and he didn’t want that to end. I played out the rest of that league year; we ended up winning the whole thing.
Winning the championship was awesome for sure, but that isn’t what I will remember about those weeks. Jay makes his living as a Pastor, and he’s a damn good one at that. But whenever I spoke to him, he spoke to me as a friend first and as someone who has known me since I was twelve years old. Sometimes we would talk about what was going on, and sometimes he would let me play nine holes like everything was normal again.
To say that golf was the only thing that got me through those two years would be a lie. But I feel confident in saying that it was one of the biggest things that helped. We just celebrated the one year anniversary of Meagan’s last treatment, and thank God she is completely healthy, but it got me thinking of those two years and all that we went through. And again my mind turned to golf and how it was there for me when I needed it. Whether it was Silver Cup, or playing in league with Jay, or just chasing the sun on random afternoons with my dad, the game that we all love was able to show it’s love for me.
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