The Nine Lessons (9 page)

I’d read recently about my own mother’s trip to the hospital during her pregnancy with me, and I wondered if he was trying to draw some sort of comparison. I chose my words carefully. “Like I said, it scared me. I panicked that I might… you know, lose her.”

“And? Now that it’s over, have your fears subsided?”

I felt awkward talking to him about such things. I couldn’t remember ever having a conversation with him that was so personal, and I was very reluctant to share too much. But the fear I’d felt of losing my wife had triggered a wellspring of worries in my mind, and as long as he was asking, something inside compelled me to share. “Subsided? No, more like mushroomed. The more I think about it, the more anxiety I feel. The whole incident at the hospital got me to thinking. What if we have this child and then some unexpected tragedy occurs? There are just so many things that can go wrong in life. People face serious problems every day, and I’m not so sure I’m ready to deal with such things as a parent. For example, what if our finances go to pot and we can’t afford to raise the kid? Or what if it’s a health problem like Erin’s, only worse? There’s nothing I can do as a husband or father to prevent tragedies from happening. That’s what is really terrifying.”

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, while adjusting the brim of his visor. “It’s scary.” He hesitated. “Augusta, now you’re asking questions that everyone must face in life, whether they are going to be a new parent or not. Sometimes bad things just happen. What then?”

“Exactly. What then?”

London knew more than most people about tragedy, and I privately hoped he was going to share his insights. But apparently he decided our conversation was over, because instead of answering his own question, he slapped me on the back, stood up, and said, “Let’s go play some golf in the rain.”

Due to the weather we elected to tee off on hole number ten and just play the back nine. London’s game was mostly unaffected by the weather, but for me it was an outright struggle getting the ball to do anything right (which wasn’t a whole lot different from normal, except that I ended up with grassy clumps of mud all over me in the process).

On hole number eleven the rain picked up even more, which I wouldn’t have thought possible, and by the twelfth hole it felt more like swimming than golf. My tee shot on the thirteenth hole, a short par three, soared way up high in the air and then splashed down in the muddy bog of a sand trap just off the green. When I got to the edge of the bunker and looked in, I couldn’t see my ball at all because it was buried several inches deep in the sloppy mess.

“Are you going to let me pull it out, or do I have to play it where it lies?” I asked my father.

He was watching me from beneath the safety of his umbrella. “Go ahead and play it, Augusta,” he replied sternly.

I shot him a quick look of annoyance, and then stepped gingerly into the shifting sand, instantly sinking up to my ankles. A thin wet sludge poured into my shoes just above the laces. “This bites,” I muttered.

“Bunkers usually do,” he replied dismissively.

On my first swing all I did was send the top layer of muck flying toward the flagstick, and on my second swing I felt lucky just to make contact with the ball. It popped up out of its hole to a new spot in the sand just a few feet away, but still at the bottom of the bunker. I stepped forward and swung again, this time making excellent contact with the muddy sphere; it sailed like a rocket off the face of my club, hit the front lip of the bunker, shot straight up into the air, and then curled back down to earth and plopped into the wet sand less than a foot from its original location.

“For cripes’ sake!” I shouted. “Can’t I just pull it out and take a penalty stroke or two?”

Dad seemed to be enjoying my agony. “Just keep swinging. Eventually you’ll find your way out.”

Four shots later I was out of the sand bunker, and three shots after that I finally put the ball into the miserable little cup, which was filled to the brim with water. From the shins down I was caked in sandy mud, and the rest of me was soaked to the bone from the rain. My father took mercy on me and canceled the rest of our round so we could get out of the weather and dry off.

While we were wiping down our clubs in the warmth of the pro shop I asked London if he wanted to reschedule our round of golf. “I committed to nine lessons,” I said diplomatically. “So if there’s really something you want to try to teach me this month, I’m willing to come back when it’s not so wet.”

“I thought we had just the right amount of moisture for today’s lesson.”

A rush of disappointment ran through me as I realized what he was up to. “Oh, for crying out loud. Is this going to be another silly golf-life analogy? Are you ever going to give me instruction that will actually improve my score? What I agreed to was golf lessons, not life lessons.”

He went back to cleaning his clubs, speaking to me almost indifferently while he worked the mud from the grooves of his seven-iron with the sharp end of a tee. “I never promised to teach you how to be a better golfer. I only said that I wanted to help you better understand the game. So like it or not, the golf lessons that you’ve signed up for are what they are. It just so happens that golf, to me, is life, so that’s what I’ll teach.”

I shook my head in frustration. “You’re wrong, you know. You’ve always been wrong. Golf is
not
life, and I hope someday you figure that out. In life are there course directions to tell you where to go? No. Are there maps pointing out all of the hazards? No! You can’t practice life before you start playing, like Delores did at the driving range. You’re thrown into it at birth and forced to play until it’s over. So forgive me if I’m a little skeptical about your philosophy. I didn’t buy into it as a kid and I don’t buy it now either.”

London’s faced was flushed with color. “Whether you agree with me or not is irrelevant. All I’m trying to do is teach you a few things that you bloody well need to learn.”

“You’re something else,” I sneered. “What the heck was I supposed to learn out there in the driving rain?”

He stared at me with the same expression that he’d worn while I was trying to extricate my stupid ball from the depths of the muddy bunker. “Precisely
that,
Augusta! Some days we play the game of life in the bloody rain. Not all days can be sunny skies and fair weather. But sooner or later the dark clouds dissipate… and the light shines through.”

For reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on, the simplicity of what he’d just said got under my skin. I was so completely drenched that my fingers were like prunes, but the discomfort I felt at that moment still paled in comparison to the infinite number of tragedies that can beset a person during the course of a lifetime. It irked me beyond reason that I’d opened up to him about my justifiable fears about life’s unpredictable disasters, and now he wanted to compare the possible realization of those fears to what? A little
rain
?

“That’s it?” I asked indignantly. “Life has rainy days? That’s your brilliant lesson? You couldn’t have just made that point from somewhere a little dryer than out on that swamp of a golf course? For the record, the tragedies of life that I was talking about earlier rate a little higher on the misfortune scale than inconvenient weather.”

Dad diverted his dark eyes once more to the club in his hand and continued picking at specks of dirt as though I hadn’t said anything.

“You’re going to ignore me? Why, because you know I’m right?” London didn’t look up. “Tell me, O sage golfer,” I continued, “was it just another rainy day when Mom died? Did the sun ever come back out?” He stayed focused on his club, gently sliding it back into his golf bag. “I didn’t think so.”

I quickly patted dry the last few of my clubs, shoved them into my bag, and turned to leave. I’d had quite enough of golf for one day, and London’s tidy little golf-in-the-rain analogy was way too trite for my liking. I’d only gone a few steps when my father spoke up in a soft, subdued voice, almost like a whisper. My ears strained to hear him. “Hail,” he said.

I spun back around to face him. “Hell?”

“That, too, I suppose,” he said faintly, looking downright beaten. “It wasn’t a typical rainstorm the day your mother passed away. It was hail, and wind, and thunder and lightning, and every other kind of tempest you can imagine, and it raged for months on end. So you’re right—some tragedies are more than just rainy days.”

I set my golf bag down on its stand. “And did the sun ever come back out?”

He managed half a grin as he contemplated my question. “It peeks out from time to time, shining in fits and spurts.” He let his soft-spoken words drift off into memories of the past. London looked down at the floor before quietly finishing his thought. “It’s been pretty gray for years, but lately I’ve seen the sun more frequently… about once a month.”

I didn’t know quite what to say. Was he implying that his brightest days were our monthly rendezvous on the golf course? London managed to pull his steady gaze up off the ceramic tiles, and then we just stood staring at each other for several long moments, each of us trying to get a read on the other. “I have to go,” I muttered at last. I picked up my clubs slowly, debating whether I should say anything else before leaving. The mere fact that my father was making an overt effort to teach me things that fathers are
supposed
to teach their children over the course of their existence threw me for a loop. Despite his rough-and-tumble demeanor, he was extending himself as he never had before, and although I didn’t like the format of his teaching, I was nonetheless astonished that he was even trying. Why now? I was intrigued enough by his behavior that I wanted to find out. “So,” I ventured hesitantly, “another lesson next month?”

He nodded. “I’ll bring the cards.”

CHAPTER 10

Golf isn’t a game, it’s a choice that one makes with one’s life.

—Charles Rosin

D
ecember 4, 1973
—Jessalynn would have the baby today if she could, but the doctor says she is still probably a couple weeks off. However, it is comforting to know that she is far enough along now that it could come at any time and the baby would be fine. Mr. Montgomery called our home today while I was at work and inquired as to my decision about studying golf under his instruction next year in Georgia. In my absence Jessalynn told him I would do it. I’m still not sure how I feel about it, but Jessalynn seems dead set on my going through with it.

December 21, 1973—IT’S A BOY!!! I’m a bloody father!! The whole thing is absolutely amazing. The last twenty-four hours have been a complete whirlwind. The onset of labor did not transpire quite as we had expected it to. Yesterday evening Jessalynn and I were watching a show on television, during which she started complaining about having constipation pains. I told her she was probably going into labor, but she was absolutely sure that she was having constipation pains, not contractions. I went to bed around eleven o’clock, but she woke me at two in the morning crying from the pain of her constipation. She said it hurt so bad that she wanted to go to the emergency room to get an enema. I suggested that we just take her to Labor and Delivery and have her checked out there, but she was convinced that she was not in labor. She even started methodically listing the reasons why she could not possibly be in labor and why it would be silly to show up at Labor and Delivery for something like constipation (never mind the fact that her due date came and went three days ago).

I took her to the ER.

The triage nurse hooked her belly up to a monitor that measured contraction strength and then began laughing. “Yes, you’re certainly constipated,” she giggled. “But the pain should go away soon, because you’re about to give birth to an eight-pound little pooper!”

She took us up to Labor and Delivery.

Unfortunately, the contractions slowed down a little bit after that, so we spent most of the day waiting for things to pick up. But wonder of all wonders, at seven-thirty this evening our little baby boy came into the world. Jessalynn was a trouper through it all. The look in her eyes when she held her son for the first time told me that she would never look back or regret leaving Princeton to embark on the greatest career known to man—a mother.

December 22, 1973—The baby is doing very well. I still can’t get over the fact that he is ours. Jessalynn is doing great, too, but is lamenting the fact that she has to fight me for turns holding our son. Fortunately, she is still very tired, so while she is sleeping I get most of the holding time. A nurse came in earlier today and told me that I shouldn’t hold him so much because it will spoil him and that he’ll want to be held all the time. I told her maybe she hadn’t been held enough as a child to believe such nonsense, and that if holding my own son will spoil him, then I am going to spoil him rotten.

December 23, 1973—The doctors allowed us to come home today with our new baby boy. We can’t agree on who he resembles more, me or Jess. I’m of the opinion that he takes after his mother, because he’s just so adorable. Hopefully he’ll get her “smarts” as well!

This morning, while we were still in our room at the hospital, a nurse came by with forms to fill out for naming him. Neither Jessalynn nor I felt strongly about any one name over another, so we told her we would mail the forms in after we’d come to a firm decision. A while later, during Jessalynn’s next nap, I decided to take “baby boy Witte” for a short walk up to the nurse’s station to use the phone. I called Mr. Montgomery and told him the good news about my new son. He was happy that everything went well. He was not, however, what I would describe as happy when I told him that I had made up my mind to stay in Vermont with my wife and child, and that I would not be pursuing a career as a professional golfer. He said I was wasting my talent. I explained that I just couldn’t see myself spending so much time away from the two people I love more than life itself. I realize, of course, that the PGA could offer a wonderful life, but fatherhood seems to have changed my priorities, and I’m okay with that.

I snuck back into the room and was filling out the forms from the nurse when Jess woke up. I handed her the top paper to see if she approved of the name I’d come up with. “Augusta?” she asked. I told her I’d just called Mr. Montgomery, and that since I won’t be playing golf at Augusta, this way I could at least play golf with Augusta. She loved the name, and is overjoyed that I am not going away.