Lessons From Elysian Fields

Prologue

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.

- Charles Dickens


For a golfer who’s conversed with the ghosts of the game’s past, the sight of an orange summer sun setting on the town of St. Andrews, Scotland is like a little piece of heaven. Standing on the sandy turf out by the River Eden, at the tip of the Old Course, you’re removed from the world and your troubles. The wind buffets your body and the sea air refreshes your lungs, reminding you how good it is to be alive. There is peace there. You feel closer to God.

So it was on a Sunday in early September, as an old woman made her way to the edge of the hill leading down to the beach past the 11th green. She came here to fulfill a wish of mine.

Creeping up to the edge of the brae, she pulled a plastic baggie from her coat pocket. “Alex, my darling man. We miss you. I love you so much.” She looked back toward town across an expanse of green grass and yellow gorse. “We had such a wonderful life together.”

Opening the bag, she shook out its sandy contents. The breeze swirled the ashes, whisking some of them past her left shoulder onto the ground while others carried toward the water down below. I had wanted her to sprinkle a part of me on this place that had meant so much, this place that had given my life back to me.

“I’ll be seeing you, my love,” she whispered. Kneeling down, she kissed her fingers and touched them to the ground. Tears slipped off her cheeks, splashing the grass.

“Rest well sweetheart,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself, her eyes closed in quiet remembrance. Her journey to the Old Course was now complete, but mine had begun years earlier, before I was even born.