Golf And A Son’s Love Lifts Alzheimer’s Fog

This is a fictional short story that appeared in The Memorial Magazine.

As he pulled into the usual parking space, Ben wrestled with the usual thoughts persisting in the back of his mind. With each passing day, each weekly visit, the foreboding thought gained traction, uninvited but unavoidable.

This was another Wednesday, and the clouds gathered. It had been more than a year since they last dissipated, since a beam of sunlight broke through. And he couldn’t help but wonder if the clouds might ever part again. It had been more than a year of Wednesday visits to the Sunrise Senior Caregiving Center, and they rolled through Ben’s head like stop motion movie frames. 

He would enter the yellow brick building, as drab on the outside as it is on the inside. He would proceed to the room, introduce himself all over again and spend the next several hours searching. The silver-haired man, now in his mid-70s, would sit there, accommodating but unaffected. He would listen but never connect. His mind would somewhere else, somewhere distant, out of reach. 

Ben would talk about the kids, mention relatives, discuss current events. He would flip through a scrapbook, read from a favorite author, describe his day at work … and the needle never moved. The silver-haired man’s face, the empty expression, never changed.  

So they would turn on the television, The Price Is Right or Dr. Phil, and sit there, mostly in silence. Time would pass, maddeningly slow but uninterrupted. And the thoughts advancing in Ben’s head would become harder to suppress.

He moved back home, leaving a career-elevating position at a prestigious golf club in New Jersey to take the opening at the club down the road, a move based on proximity not on promise. He cleared his Wednesday calendar so he could continue to visit, continue to try. 

He had accepted disappointment, over and over again. But now, as he pulled into that familiar parking space on yet another Wednesday, as those despairing thoughts came knocking, he struggled to ignore them any longer. Maybe it was time to accept reality … maybe it was hopeless.  

“Or maybe,” he considered, clutching one last thread of optimism, “Just maybe …”

As he walked through the row of glass doors to the front desk, Dr. Moss was waiting, a firm right hand extended.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Caldwell,” said the erudite physician, the clipboard in his right hand pressed to the chest pocket of his white lab coat. “I thought I might meet you here just to go over some things before we proceed with this.

“As you know, regulations don’t normally allow for patients to leave the facility grounds.”

Ben met the extended hand with his own and acknowledged the managing director’s concerns.

“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Ben, an appropriate tone of compliance in his voice. “I appreciate your reservations, doctor, and I know this is against the rules. The club is just down the road and I assure you, I’ll take full responsibility. Should anything go wrong, I will call you immediately and have him back in no time.”

Dr. Moss lowered the clipboard to a less formal height and peered over his reading glasses.

“We don’t know for certain how he’ll react, Ben,” he advised. “I caution you not to get your expectations up. He’ll be out of his element. It’ll be disorienting and confusing. He could become fearful, even hysterical.”

Ben nodded again. “I know, I know,” he said. “Trust me, I won’t do anything to upset him. But I have to try, doctor. I have to try.”

“Still,” Dr. Moss concluded, resuming the more authoritative pose, “I’m sending an attendant with you,” motioning to a staff member standing nearby. “He’ll know how to respond.”

With that, Ben and the attendant proceeded around the corner and down a long corridor to the room. They paused a moment to knock, then entered. The silver-haired man sat alone in the green upholstered chair, peering out the window, sunlight pouring through the spotted window pane. 

Ben introduced himself once again. “How are you today, sir?” he asked, without expecting a reply. “I thought maybe we could do something different this morning. It’s so beautiful out there. Maybe you’d like to go for a ride.”

The man looked up at Ben only briefly before returning his gaze to the window. There was no objection to the proposal, nor was there an endorsement. There was no emotion to decipher or change in demeanor. Instead, the silver-haired man was focused on a more pressing matter, one that never seemed fully resolved.

“We’ll be back in time to water the plants won’t we?” he said, speaking to Ben as he would any other member of the facility staff. “That plant needs watering. It hasn’t been watered for days.”

In fact, the spider plant on the nightstand had been watered a bit the day before, as it had the day before and the day before that. But when he wasn’t asking to go home, or asking about lunch, the silver-haired man was preoccupied with the plant. He obsessed over the lack of attention it received, when in truth it was being suffocated with attention. 

“You have to water those regularly, you know,” he added, waving an admonishing finger. 

“Of course,” Ben nodded, helping the man to his feet and leading him toward the door. “We won’t be gone long. We’ll be back in plenty of time to water the plants.”

The attendant climbed in back and Ben helped the silver-haired man into the passenger seat of the Ford Escape. As they backed out of the space, the look of uncertainty became more evident on the man’s face. 

“Where are we going?” he asked, a hint of anxiety in his voice. “I don’t know if we should be leaving …”

“It’s all right,” the staff attendant in back reassured the man, leaning forward to put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, sir,” Ben added, helping with the seat belt. “Everything is fine. We’re not going far.”

They made a right out of the parking lot and headed down the two-lane road. Along the brief ride, the silver-haired man was uneasy, sitting erect in his seat, squeezing the armrest. His eyes surveyed the passing terrain of white picket fences and red-brick homes, searching for something familiar, something comforting.

A mile-and-a-half passed quickly before Ben turned left into the stately entrance of Cross Creek Golf Club. Past the decorative gates, he cruised up the asphalt drive, outlined in blossoming white dogwoods, and pulled into a parking space marked, “Reserved Parking for Head Professional.”

As the attendant helped the silver-haired man out of the car, Ben went around back and popped the trunk. He reached in to grab the faded canvas bag with brown-leather trimming, a bag of clubs that had seen better days but—Ben reflected—never one more important.

Slinging the clubs on his shoulder, Ben clutched the silver-haired man by the arm and slowly led the way through the oversized front doors of the English Tudor clubhouse.

“Good morning, gentlemen, beautiful day isn’t it?” said a well-dressed man, adjusting his tie and stepping from a desk in the foyer.  

“Allow me,” he added, opening the doors to the great living room. “Oh, and I wanted to thank you again for the help yesterday, Ben. I couldn’t have gotten those tables moved without you.”

“No need for thanks, Edward,” Ben said, then added with a wink, “good for the back, helps build the golf muscles you know.”  

The three men passed a well-appointed sitting area, where an elegant oak mantel hung atop a rustic stone hearth. Sitting on the camelback sofa, a middle-aged woman looked up from her magazine and called out: “Can’t wait for our session tomorrow, Ben. I’ve been using that grip change, and I have to say, I’m hitting the ball with much more consistency. You’re a genius!”

Ben was quick with a self-effacing response. “Don’t be silly,” he said. “That’s all you, Mrs. Hansen. You obviously have been practicing; you deserve all the credit. By the way, I really enjoyed working with your son the other day. You should be proud. He’s quite a young man.”

Joan Hansen beamed as she turned back to her magazine, savoring the thoughtful comment about her oldest boy. 

As they walked on, the silver-haired man looked at Ben curiously and broke his impassive silence. “My, you certainly seem to have a way with people.”

“Well, a very wise man I know once told me,” Ben explained, “If you have the opportunity to make someone happy today, do it. The world needs more happiness.”

Across an expansive flagstone patio, they walked, surrounded by green lawns, sculptured landscaping and the captivating quilt of the golf course beyond. Off to one side, the practice range cut a wide swath cross the sprawling landscape, each of its stations marked by a pyramid of white balls and a bag stand. 

At the far end, a solitary figure hit balls to the distant flags. After each swing, the man stopped to check his posture, the position of his hands, and the draw of his cigar. Ben led the party to the adjacent putting green, helping the silver-haired man to a seat on the wooden bench and setting the golf bag down alongside him. 

“Do you play golf?” he asked, reaching into the satchel to fetch the Titleist Bulls Eye putter, which showed its age with a rich, dark patina. “Would you like to try a few?”

The silver-haired man squirmed in his seat, abruptly out of sorts and contrary to the idea. He looked up at Ben, protest evident in his eyes. “No, I ... I don’t ... my balance isn’t very good,” he pleaded. “I really ... I ... think we should be heading back now. … My plants need watering.”

“It’s all right,” Ben said, helping the reluctant man to his feet and coaxing him onto the putting surface. He handed over the club, put his hands on the skittish man’s hips and dropped three balls at his feet. “Just give it a try. I won’t let you fall.” 

Feeling the putter in his hands, the silver-haired man’s disposition shifted. He adjusted his hold, allowing the grip of the club to rest in the lifelines of his palms, overlapping the index finger of his left hand over the little finger of his right. He bent at the waist, raised his eyes to the little white pin 20 feet away and stroked the putt. The ball rolled to the right edge of the hole, just short. 

Without hesitating, he pulled another ball into his stance, looked up briefly to study the path, and with unfaltering tempo, rolled another just to the opposite edge. Ben slowly let go of the man’s hips. He didn’t need the anchor, and he didn’t even notice. 

“You know, the moment you try to make a putt, you’ll miss it every time,” the silver-haired man said, without breaking concentration over his next attempt. And with that, he stroked another putt, pouring the third ball to the front of the cup and watching it drop in.

As it did, the attendant sitting quietly nearby jumped to his feet, disbelieving what his eyes had just observed.

“Yes, it’s just like Jack Nicklaus used to say,” the silver-haired man continued, now uninhibited as he strolled across the green to retrieve the balls. “It’s about confidence, feel and square contact.”

Ben fought to contain his composure, He had to be careful to temper his emotions, not over-react and not overwhelm the silver-haired man. To do so might send him in a different direction, cause him to recoil, gather the clouds once more.

But there was no denying the transition he was witnessing, the years that just vanished right before his eyes.  

“Here young man, why don’t you try a few,” the silver-haired man said, offering up the putter. Now it was Ben who looked apprehensive, unable to concentrate. But he took the club, steadied himself and rolled a few putts.

The stroke was purposeful, uncomplicated, almost identical. “Say, you do that very well; very well indeed,” the man said.

“Yes, well, I had a very good teacher,” Ben replied, looking at the man, studying his response more intently. “We spent a lot of time together on the practice greens, and he always made it fun. I owe an awful lot to him.”

Ben then decided to push the envelope, just a bit. He asked the silver-haired man if he would like to move over to the range, take a few full swings. “Well, I guess we should give it a try, right?” the silver-haired man. “I’m feeling pretty limber today.”

Ben grabbed the bag and they walked across the manicured lawn to the range. Setting the clubs down, Ben pulled out the old McGregor 7-iron, plucked a few balls off the pyramid and demonstrated. Each swing was effortless. Each ball skyrocketed off the tarnished club-face, arched toward the distant flag and landed softly nearby.

“That’s a lovely swing, young man,” said the silver-haired man, ever more comfortable in his surroundings. “Looks like you’ve done this before.”

“That’s very kind, sir, thank you,” Ben answered. “This man I was telling you about, he always used to say, ‘The only time you use force with a golf club is when you’re putting it back in the bag,’ ”

The silver-haired man smiled with approval. At the same time, Ben pulled a few more balls off the pile and offered up the club. “Would you like to try a few?”

At this point, the silver-haired man was only too happy to try. He positioned a ball at his feet and, with a similarly fluid swing, sent it soaring skyward, pausing to watch as it gracefully parachuted to the target. With a look of delight, he cuddled several more balls and launched several more shots, each with the same natural motion.

And as he did, the accompanying attendant huddled with Ben. Their excitement was palpable but mitigated by prudence.

“This is remarkable,” the attendant said. “I’ve never seen him this alert and this active. But we shouldn’t overdo it; we should think about going back now.”

Ben didn’t argue, but had one more request: “Please, just a little while longer. We’ll just stop in the grill for a refreshment. Then we can go.”

With that, the three departed the range and returned to the clubhouse. They made their way through the patio doors, through the living room and into the grill on the opposite side of the foyer. With a hand on the silver-haired man’s shoulder, Ben led the party to a particular table in the back corner of the room, where several framed pictures and golf memorabilia adorned the walls.

No sooner had they sat than a waiter appeared. Ben greeted him warmly. “Hello Jeffrey, good to see you. I think we’ll just have something to drink, if you don’t mind. Make mine an iced tea,” he said, and looked across the table.

“Just water for me,” the attendant added quickly.

Both men then looked at the silver-haired man, who didn’t hesitate to speak up: “I’ll have an Arnold Palmer,” he said, with a satisfied grin. 

Ben and the attendant looked at each other, incredulously.

“You know what an Arnold Palmer is, don’t you?” the silver-haired man added. 

“Oh yes sir,” the waiter replied. “Coming right up.”

As they sat at the table, awaiting the drinks, the silver-haired man thanked his companions for bringing him out. His conversation was more lucid than it had been in months, his demeanor more vibrant. He was no longer locked in the dark closet of Alzheimer’s. The door was cracked open.  

Ben told him more stories about himself, about the times he spent with his mentor, the man who took him golfing, who taught him so many things about himself and about life. 

“It must be someone who is very proud of you, young man,” the silver-haired man said. “Tell me, is it someone you still see, someone you stayed in touch with? Perhaps it’s someone I know, eh? I would like to meet him. Tell me, who is it?”

Before the answer could come, the silver-haired man’s attention wandered to the framed picture on the wall, just over Ben’s shoulder. It was an image of two men, posed arm and arm, holding a silver trophy with the inscription: “Ohio Golf Association Father-Son Tournament, First Place, 2006.”

Then it happened, all at once. He stared at the picture, suddenly aware, suddenly awash in memories and emotions. He knew the game of golf — of course he did. Those neglected old clubs that felt so comfortable in his hands … they were his own. 

And sitting across the table with him was the boy he raised and played golf with countless times, the young man who became an accomplished player and respected teacher, the man of whom he was so proud.  

“My God,” he said, looking down from the picture to the man sitting across the table. “Benjamin.” 

“That’s right.” Ben replied, the tears welling up in his eyes. “It’s you, Dad.

“It’s been you all along.”