Hunting for Golf Balls by Tom Velterop ⁠– Part III

Dear Dad,

It is January again, and I can’t help but think of you. Christmas was hard enough without you there, but this is worse. January is an empty month. The daylight lasts an eyeblink, and the night never seems to let go come morning. The sun rises over shadows.

I walked through the golf course again today. The golfers shouted at me when I crossed in front of their tee off, so I ran from them to Pirate Island. It’s always quiet in the trees there, and I can almost pretend the forest stretches on and on forever, that it covers the whole world in green and dappled shade.

I found the tree. Last year, just after it happened, I went to the copse and picked the tallest, strongest pine tree I could find, right in the middle of the copse, and attacked it with an axe. You know the one, the little kindling axe we keep by the wood burner in the sitting room. I swung at the poor tree for hours and hours until it bled, and I was worn out.

The scars on the pine tree are raw and scabbed and weeping sap. They are in a random, horrible pattern. Vicious and wild and hateful. I never knew I had that in me. I couldn’t look at the tree for long.

You hit me once, a few years ago. Do you remember? I can’t remember what I did to make you do it. I think I was just complaining about something, and you had had enough, I suppose. I hid upstairs in my room the rest of the day. It’s funny that I remember that now. I wonder if you ever looked at me afterwards in the same way I looked at that tree.

Love,

Your son.

Dear Dad,

I walked to Pirate Island today in the rain. The golf course was empty, the rain must have cleared everyone out. The world felt close and dark all around me, the distance hidden by the sheets of rain. It felt like mine and yours again.

I waded into the pool with the waterfall as deep as I could in my wellies and stood there in the rain. I felt the weight of the water pressing in around my legs. I felt the roar of the water pouring into the pool, louder than thought. I felt the cold drops of rain on my face as I looked up with my eyes closed to the blank grey sky.

I was surrounded and immersed by water. The water was always in motion, never ceasing, never slowing and never rushing. It was constant. The pool surged around my legs, propelled by the waterfall, showing me to be still and steady and stronger than the water, at least. The waterfall drowned out the babble of my brain, quenching the thoughts I could no longer bear to listen to, though they were mine; especially because they were mine. The rain fell on my closed eyes and ran in cold rivulets down my skin, like the tears I’m too scared now to let fall.

I cried when Mum told us you had died. We all cried and held each other close for hours on your bed. But I haven’t cried since. Not once.

Love,

Your son.

Dear Dad,

I went to Pirate Island for what I think will be the last time today. I went searching for golf balls, like we had done when I was young. Do you remember? The copse around Pirate Island was always our favourite hunting ground.

You always managed to find so many more than me. I never knew how you did it, it was like a knack, a special sight you had that I could never understand. You didn’t even try, you never even seemed to be looking. But then suddenly you were reaching to the ground, and a perfect white ball would appear in your hand, and you would smile in that way you had. Sometimes people tell me I have the same smile.

As a kid I often hoped you would pretend you hadn’t seen the golf ball first and let me be the one to find it. I hoped sometimes that you would let me win, just for once. But I knew it wouldn’t feel the same. And I knew you never would.

I walked around the trees for a long time. I looked at the pine I had scarred with the kindling axe; it hasn’t healed very well, in all this time. The wounds look harsh, and ooze still with crusting sap. I almost gave up, even left the copse. I thought I might take one of the practice balls from the driving range, just to spite you, but I knew that wasn’t right. You always said they didn’t count. So I turned back and looked again. I looked like you always did, without trying, letting my mind and footsteps amble aimlessly (how did you always manage to meander while forging such a straight path?).

With the sky in my eyes, I found one. A perfect one, one that only you could have found, clean and bright from the rain the night before. I took it home and put it with the others, all the hundreds that we had collected together. I won’t ever add another.

Love, and other things,

Your son.

by Tom Velterop

About Hunting for Golf Balls

Hunting for Golf Balls is a four-part memoir about loss, and the last refuge of wilderness. It began with not knowing how to begin, and never really ended. The first installment was published last week and you can read it here. The first installment and the second installment have been published. The next installment will be published next Wednesday.