A Father’s Day Story

In honour of Father’s Day, our friend Jim Beecham sent us this lovely story of golf and honouring our fathers. We hope you enjoy the read as much as we did! Fairways and Greens everyone!!

Written by Harry “Jim” Beecham, III MD – written in the summer of 1991.

I was told the most incredible story this weekend by Tom’s Little League coach Randy. We were all at a San Diego Padres—Houston Astros baseball game here in San Diego. Norma and I were helping to chaperone Tom’s Little League team. 

                  While sitting out in the left center field stands, Coach Randy told me that he believed in the after-life. I don’t recall what brought that subject up while watching a live major league baseball game.  Obviously, it was on Randy’s mind. 

                  Randy began to tell me that his father had died about 10 years ago when Randy was in his late 20’s—he was now 39.  He said, “My father appeared to me about a month after he died.” 

                  Randy spoke these words like this was as normal as saying, “I just had a coffee and a donut this morning.” 

                  This opening line perked my attention so I moved closer to listen.  Randy continued, “I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom… and there he was… in the shower. Dad said, ‘everyone gets scared when they see me now, son.’ And that was it. That was all he said, so I went back to bed.”

                  Randy then said, “My Dad had been an avid golfer and had been recognized as an amateur golf champion while in the Navy. So, I took down his ashes late one night.  I then sneaked out and buried them below a tree adjacent to the 11^th green at the Coronado Golf Course. I chose the 11^th hole because that’s where Dad had once aced a hole-in-one.  At that very hole.”

                  I know this is a somewhat bizarre story. But it did happen just this way. And that’s about all Randy had to say about it. What could I do?  We then went back to watching the game with the boys. 

                  Later when I got home I thought, what a story!  Later thinking about it, Randy’s story struck me as a unique story of love, caring, and then a positive action to maintain a memory, a connectedness to what had passed on. So, I proceeded to write it down in my “writing” journal that I kept at the time.

                  Life can be so full of disconnections it seems. I thought, for Randy this was a practical way of finding some healing in the wake of the loss of his father. 

                  And his telling his story to me at the game? 

                  Well…in the words of Marshall Ganz, Harvard University, our stories “communicate our values through the language of the heart, our emotions,” and our stories “can inspire us to act.” I would add that our stories provide our families with a common memory to guide and to inspire. 

                  Yes, for the sake of our children, we need to tell our stories.