I had been praying for this message for over a year. “Golf this week? How about Tuesday or Wednesday?” Charles Bowman emailed.
Charles is my stockbroker. The reason I can retire without worries. I joked, “You only want to play golf when my portfolio is at an all-time high!”
It had been a year since we last played. Over the last 50 years we had played dozens of rounds together. We started playing on the championship Greenwood High School golf team of 1975. Our home course was the Greenwood Country Club.
I remember our last round well. It was at the Refuge. It may have been the first time I was even competitive. I was playing well and he actually looked human rather than the scratch golfer who had defeated me time and time again with such ease.
My competitive satisfaction was soon displaced with a much stronger negative emotion. I learned Charles had been rushed to the hospital, having nearly bled to death when the cancer on his esophagus had eaten through a large artery.
His doctor, Dr. Guangzhi Qu, didn’t mince words. “This is really really bad,” he told Charles. “But we’re going to beat it.”
The grim news of Charles’ esophageal cancer spread rapidly throughout our friend group as we collectively browsed the web to determine what it meant long term.
Short term it meant much of his esophagus had to be removed, bringing his surgically reduced stomach higher up in his chest. Going forward, eating would not be the same. More frequent, smaller meals. Sleeping would be more upright.
Charles got on the phone and talked to others who had gone through this. “It’s really not that bad once you get used to it,” he reported back to me. Typical Charles. Stoic, upbeat, optimistic. No whining or self-pitying. A man, not a crybaby.
Then the praying began. Prayers for a successful surgery. Prayers for a recovery free from infection. Prayers for a clear scan. Prayers from individuals. Prayers from Sunday school classes. Prayers from pulpits. We live in Mississippi, the buckle of the Bible Belt.
It was one of the perfect December days. Blue sky, no wind, fall foliage at its peak. The Country Club of Jackson was empty.
I was shocked that Charles wanted to play 18 holes. He was thin, 20 pounds thinner, partly due to the cumulative fatigue of radiation, now over, and partly due to having to learn how to eat with a displaced, smaller stomach.
“As long as the carts are off path, I’m okay.” He seemed slightly out of breath at first but after the first few holes, he hit his stride.
Though the radiation is over, he still has two years of immunotherapy every two weeks. Not nearly as bad as radiation and not cumulative but it weakens him for a few days.
Immunotherapy is making big advances in the treatment of a variety of cancer, especially in the last few years. It stimulates and manipulates your own immune system to attack the cancer cells. New treatments and techniques are constantly being introduced producing miraculous results and giving much-needed hope to cancer victims.
Charles didn’t smoke but he did have acid reflux which is a risk factor. Ultimately, like any cancer, it’s just a freak random mutation of the DNA that starts this evil process.
“Thank God this year is over,” I said. “It must have been the worst in your life.”
“Not at all,” Charles said. “It’s actually been a great year. I’ve had so many people praying for me. I’ve reconnected with people I hadn’t talked to in years. It’s just been great to see all the support.”
Lord have mercy that we could all have that attitude towards our struggles in life.
It reminds me of my favorite Bible verse, Romans 5:3-5, which is on the Emmerich family Christmas card this year. “We also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
This is our great challenge. To persevere with the eye on the prize, a reward beyond our tiny human imagination.
We talked and we golfed, playing rapidly. (We finished 18 holes in two hours.) As we marveled at nature’s beauty and complained about our strokes, we covered dozens of topics, catching up as always on the golf course.
He told me the past year showed him the basic goodness in people. I reminded him that as a Presbyterian we believed in the total depravity of man.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“It means that apart from the Holy Spirit working in you, there is nothing that you alone can do good in the flesh.” I said.
He asked for an example.
“Well it’s like this, Charles. You’ve just gotten over a horrible year battling cancer and at this very moment I’m thinking that this is my one chance to beat you in golf.”
Indeed, he failed to hit every shot perfectly as I had watched him do year in and year out, magnifying my golfing ineptitude and, even worse, exposing my sinful envy.
But a perfect golf shot requires a split second burst of energy directing every muscle in the body to flex powerfully and precisely at impact. Those finely tuned muscles were less precise after a year battling cancer.
Even so, he was parring most holes. We were neck and neck. The only score we cared about was who was up and by how many holes.
As the sunlight filtered through the autumn leaves we talked and laughed and moaned, occasionally feeling the exhilaration and joy of a well executed shot. It seemed as if the whole world had stopped and there we were alone on this beautiful golf course, just two friends, golfing buddies, having yet another round on this fascinating place called earth.
Fifty years. So many wonderful memories. So many stories. Endless stories. I told him of my recent hole in one, my first. He admitted he’d made so many he’d lost track.
I so wanted it to come down to the last hole. I had to get up and down on 17 to make it so. I hit a decent flop shot with my 62 degree leaving an eight foot putt. I took my time, walking all around the path and studying the break carefully. I managed to keep my wrists quiet and used my shoulders to put it in the hole.
Then on 18, Charles, like always, hit an amazing shot to seal the deal, a 20-yard chip to within a foot of the cup, establishing the rightful order of the universe. For the first time, my defeat made me happy. The Holy Spirit was in me!
After a delightful drink (or two!) on the 19th hole, I just made it to the Covenant Presbyterian Church to sing Christmas hymns. There was such joy on all the faces, most of whom I had known for decades. I looked around the room, taking in every face, each one unique, each one smiling and laughing and singing, each one full of infinite complexity and mystery.
It really did seem like Christmas.
