In the 1970’s and 80’s I was a big pro wrestling fan, still am to some degree. You know the kind on TV. One of my favorite “managers” was the Grand Wizard. He wore a sequined turban and wrap-around sunglasses. He was obnoxious, loud, and boisterous and he managed several popular champions including one of my all time favorites, the tag team of Professor Toru Tanaka and Mr. Fuji. I was watching when they announced that the Wizard had suffered an untimely death. In the timeless tradition of the show must go on they recognized the Wizard with a moment of silence, rang the ring bell once in tribute and the first match began.

My morning golf group recently had a death and frankly the wrestling service, as brief as it was, surpassed anything we did for Harry. Standing around the first tee box his death was announced by one of the guys. Some of us listened and reacted murmuring. You spend fifteen hours a week with someone and they die and it doesn’t affect you? Now, you must know that we are old. Everyone in our group is in their second season, everyone has experienced loss. We’ve lost a lot, our parents are long gone, some of us have lost wives, some even children, all have lost friends. There is scar tissue from these losses I’m sure that leads to a certain emotional detachment. While we recognize our mortality we sure as hell don’t want to talk about it. So Harry gets the short shrift.

I played with Harry. He was a good partner and we won every once and a while. I knew what he did for a living, where he grew up and what his hobbies were. I couldn’t tell you what his wife’s name is. I only remember a casserole she brought to one of our potluck dinners. On the flipside I’m sure he knew nothing about me because he never asked. We would spend five hours together several days a season and our knowledge of each other was pitifully minimal. I get we were there to play golf, but where is the intimacy, the familiarity that would naturally take place with two humans spending this amount of time together?

It can happen. Once, while four of us were on an extended car ride to a tournament in another part of the state one of the guys suggested we go around the car and each of us tell our story. So we did and it was amazing the stories were captivating. One of us had traveled the world as a twenty year old luckily dodging prison in Iran, one was a lifelong Marine ending his career as a commandant of a US Naval Prison, another was a chief of staff for a congressman in Washington. We talked about our favorite books and foods. You know what, we got close.We got to know each other. We became more than casual acquaintances and while one of us has moved on, three of us are still close.

So let me suggest this. Get to know your golfing buddies. There are some amazing lives out there. Ask questions, find out their passions. Don’t recite your accomplishments, no one likes that. Let them tell you their story and if it goes right they’ll want to know yours. Generate some intimacy and if someone leaves our world we will all know what we’re missing and we can accept that and we can ring the bell and we can go and play golf.