Still Me By Rashmi

I’ve never understood golf.

I understand most sports.

In tennis, two people hit a ball to each other.

In cricket, someone bowls and someone bats.

In football, twenty-two people chase the same ball around a field.

I understand the objective.

Golf, however, has always baffled me.

As far as I can tell, everyone arrives carrying their own clubs, armed with their own little white ball…

…and then they voluntarily spend the next four or five hours chasing it.

Nobody is trying to steal your ball.

Nobody is defending it.

Nobody even wants your ball.

And yet…

off everyone goes.

Voluntarily.

My husband, on the other hand, absolutely loves the game.

Every Saturday, come rain or shine, you’ll find him somewhere on a golf course.

His most repeated sentence over the past twenty years has probably been,

“I don’t know what’s wrong with my golf game lately.”

He’s been saying that for years.

And yet, every Saturday…

off he goes again.

I’ve always found something rather lovely about that.

You don’t have to be brilliant at something to love it.

I often joke that it’s a good thing our son wasn’t born on a Saturday. I’m honestly not convinced my husband would have made it to the delivery room before finishing his round.

Over the years I’ve met plenty of golfing wives.

In fact, we even have a name.

Golf widows.

To clarify—we haven’t lost our husbands. We simply wave them goodbye every Saturday morning and get them back a few hours later slightly sunburnt, mildly dehydrated and armed with a detailed analysis of every shot we never saw.

Many “golf widows” eventually surrender and take up the sport themselves.

They buy the shoes.

They buy the clubs.

They learn the etiquette.

They discuss handicaps with enormous seriousness.

I’ve never been tempted.

Admittedly, I’m not the sportiest person in the world, but I’ve never understood voluntarily spending half a day chasing something that seems determined to stay lost.

That said, I’m genuinely glad my husband has golf.

We own a restaurant together, so unlike most couples, we spend almost every waking hour together.

We’re business partners.

We’re husband and wife.

We’re colleagues.

Occasionally we’re also the opposition.

So, Saturday golf isn’t just his hobby.

It’s my day off too.

I wave him goodbye with enormous affection…

…and then thoroughly enjoy having the house all to myself.

A few months ago, after my cancer came back, I needed another operation before chemotherapy could begin.

The doctors recommended inserting a chemotherapy port. Four rounds of A&C followed by twelve rounds of Paclitaxel would be hard on my veins, so this little device would make treatment much easier.

A few days after the surgery, the dressing came off.

I looked in the mirror at the little lump just below my collarbone…

and burst out laughing.

“Oh no…”

“I’ve swallowed a golf ball.”

Of all the things it could have resembled…

it chose the one object I’d spent years refusing to chase.

Now, instead of my husband following a golf ball around every weekend…

I seem to have one following me around.

Apparently, it’s staying with me for another year.

Life has a wicked sense of humour.

Never say never.

The very thing you refuse to chase may one day decide to move in with you.

Having said that…

I’m still not taking up golf.