Mike: A Man for Others

It is part of the human condition to be in periodic if not constant need of healing.  Grief comes in many forms.  Among those forms is the loss of a loved one, or the result of a word or deed or the lack of a word or deed that brought pain to oneself or another, or the hurt caused by neglect or abuse hurled by another, or maybe just the memory of a squandered opportunity to be what one might otherwise have been.  All too often, humans fail to heal because they fail to acknowledge their grief, or don’t even know it exists.

In the course of struggling to grieve the loss of my brother, I received a bit of sage advice from a licensed clinical psychologist, Kevin Kindelan of Kindelan & Associates, in Winter Haven, Florida.  Dr. Kindelan suggested I write a story about a round of golf I played with Mike after he died.  I immediately liked that arguably bizarre suggestion.  I played the round and wrote the story.  I found the experience healing, quite spiritual in fact.  Mike’s widow Jean told me the story made her cry.  My friend Emmy Collins, who knew Mike, said the story brought tears to her eyes.  My daughter Judy loved her Uncle Mike and she loved the story.  The story was published in The Ledger, a Lakeland, Florida newspaper, on January 3, 2010.  Here is the full text:

 My brother Mike and I went around 18 holes at Sugarloaf Mountain Golf Course in Minneola recently.
 As usual, I wrote his name on the scorecard on the line above my own name.  It was just Mike and I, although usually we play in foursomes.  We’ve been doing it for more than 50 years.
 I was glad Jason, the course manager, allowed us to go out alone.  Single players generally are not allowed on golf courses.
 Like motor boats approaching sail boats, single players have no rights when coming upon other players.
 Sugarloaf is a special place to me because it was special to Mike.  He loved the many challenges the long holes and rolling holes presented.
 But perhaps most of all he loved the people he had served as a food and beverage consultant.  Because they loved him, I wanted to be around them.
 The previous manager, Jim, told me once before he moved on and was replaced by Jason, “We all loved Mike.  He wasn’t just our food and beverage consultant.  He was our friend.  He would do whatever was needed: grill hamburgers, wash golf carts, whatever.”
 I don’t know whether Mike wanted to hit any shots that day but I do know that he couldn’t.
 You see, the ashes that had for far too fleeting a time been Mike’s body had been spread on the wind at Sugarloaf two months prior.
 In spite of that, Mike did appear that Friday, in a familiar stance.
 He was quiet, staring at the target, fingering the three clubs in his hands while he decided which he was going to use, and then hitting his best shot of the day.
 Mike and I were out there together, alone for three-and-a-half hours.  I spoke with him frequently and think (believe, wish?) that he heard me and that what I heard was him.
 “Forget about the shot.  Focus on the next one.  Stay calm,” he said a couple of times when he saw I was frustrated by a bad shot.  “Don’t think about your score.  Just try to put the clubface on the ball.  Remember: the golf gods giveth and the golf gods taketh away.”
 My aging injured spine prevented me from taking a decent turn on the ball.
 On the back nine, the Darvocet was wearing off, my back was getting stiffer, and the pain was becoming more of a distraction.
 Mike and I talked about that, too.
 “What did the last doctor you saw say?  Are you doing your exercises?”
 For Mike, golf was almost larger than life.  He wanted that for me as well.
 “Forget that!” with uncharacteristic emphasis, even angrier late last year when I told him I might have to have back surgery and give up golf.
 By the time I got to the thirteenth tee, my lower back felt tied in a knot.  But as I surveyed the long stretch of fairway lined by trees with Lake Apopka beyond, I was acutely aware that this is where I needed to be.
 This is why I had come.  In the distance, at the crest of the hill, probably farther away than I could hit my tee shot, was the spot where Mike’s loved ones, myself included, had taken turns praying, reading poetry and spreading Mike’s ashes on the wind.
 No day has passed in the 78 days since Mike left suddenly, the day when I sat through the night next to his bed in the hospice section of the hospital, when I haven’t thought of him.
 Mostly, those thoughts jut sadden me.  Mostly, I just miss him.  I wonder why I haven’t cried.
 But as I addressed my teed-up ball on the 13th, my sadness, in fact all feeling, seemed to ebb from me.
 Mike would have said I was “in the zone.”  I swung smoothly and hit it pure: an uncharacteristic slight draw rising above Apopka and hanging in the air longer than I thought possible.
 It rolled and rolled, and came to rest at the crest of the hill, exactly in the middle of the fairway.
 When I stepped on the brake of the golf cart and arrived at my ball, a Bridgestone #4 Mike had given me, I was in awe.
 How had that happened?  The scenic spot where the ball lay was exactly where we had spread Mike’s ashes.  Well, except for the handful brother John had spread.
 “He’s in the trap,” John had announced in his inimitable style after spreading some ashes in a nearby sand trap, a place John said later Mike was otherwise unlikely to have ever been.
 I remembered spreading some of Mike’s ashes.  I remember some of them sticking to my hands.
 Was I weird to have wished those ashes were still stuck there, I wondered.
 I walked over to the trap, bent over and ran my fingers through the sand.  I marked the spot with an “x”, then as an afterthought extended it into a crucifix.
 “God, where are you?” I asked Mike.  Or was I asking God where He himself was?  I felt angry.  I felt deserted.  I even felt bitter.
 Minutes later, as I approached the 15th tee after having butchered the previous hole, my angst was interrupted by the cart girl: “Hannah” her name tag announced.
 She offered me a cold towel.  I took it and asked her for an orange juice.  She insisted I not pay for it.
 “Did my brother Mike Quinlan hire you,” I asked.
 “No, I’m new.  Jim hired me.  But I heard about Mr. Quinlan.”
 I gave her a $5 tip, wondering whether he would have given her more, and wished she had known Mike.
 Not a moment too soon for my aching back but far too soon for my aching heart, my round with Mike was over.  It seemed he had slipped away, little more than an ephemeral memory.
 Where is my brother?  I wonder every day, and wondered two days later as I stood up to read to the Sunday congregation.
 Maybe the answer is embedded in the Bible.  We are taught God is love; that He is in us; and that, when we love one another, we are in Him.  A comforting concept, and yet …
 Mike, can you hear me?  Did you hear the birds that sang their songs while we were together that Friday?”