Ash’s first love was golf. It was also his mistress. He played in high school, also in college, kind of meandered around for a few years before returning to his first love. Many arguments happened because of golf. You know about the very first one, the one when we were in Arizona, super hot, lots of beer, lost his very expensive ball in the water, first fight, angry first fight sex (which I now realize could explain a lot about our relationship, piss Kellie off, get super laid – just reinforcing bad behavior, I was. Damn.). Anyway, golf. Ash’s favorite. He became a golf pro (not to be confused with a professional golfer, some people don’t know there’s a difference but there is. A big one. A professional golfer plays golf professionally (and gets paid for it). A golf pro plays golf for fun when he’s not stuck inside the pro shop and planning tournaments for other people to play in. There’s other stuff involved, too, but you get the point.) Ash then went on to make his dreams come true (other than marrying me, of course) and opened his/our own indoor golf facility, which we then had to sell, because cancer followed by death and all that depressing shit.

Anyway, our first Christmas together, Ash gave me a set of golf clubs with a brand new bright green and brown bag (those were my favorite colors – he could be really sweet and attentive when he wanted to be) with a promise to teach me to play golf so that the next time we happen to be on vacation, and he happens to want to play a round (or 6), maybe I could play, too. We spent months working on my golf game. We had huge arguments over my golf game. I did not enjoy his teaching style. He did not enjoy my indignant nature. I did not understand how something that seems so simple could be so fucking hard. I grew up playing sports, I was decent at them, surely I could do this. I really could not. And I really did not enjoy learning it from him. We butt heads nonstop. We were both stubborn. We were both jerks. But neither one of us ever gave up.

I can’t tell you how many hours we spent at Holly Ridge Golf Course, nor how many 6 packs we consumed. Ash wouldn’t take me to any other golf course in town a. because I was horrible and 2. because my attitude was even more horrible. I like to excel, especially in sports and I definitely did excel at golf, still don’t.

But he did teach me enough about golf, and made me decent enough, that I can get around a golf course without embarrassing myself too much. Sometimes, I hit the ball, and it seems I was made for the sport. Most times, I hit the ball and it looks like I was made for anything other than golf. We played golf together the entirety of our relationship. We took a trip to Pinehurst together where I played 72 holes in 2 days. Whoa! That’s a lot of golf. He threw in a massage, too, and one of the fanciest dinner’s I have ever had. (Side note – it was my first massage ever, we did the couples massage and it is maybe top 10 best things I have ever indulged in; however, a bit tainted because the girl massaging Ash had a cold and kept sniffling all around. He held it together while we were in there but man was he upset once we left. It was pretty comical to me, though, because I’m nice like that.)

My point is, Ash was great at golf. He had one of the prettiest swings I’ve ever seen. And I know, because over the course of our 13+ years together, I watched a lot of golf with him. It was his gift. Teaching it was really his gift. I mean, I was literally the worst student ever, and I can sort of play golf now. Sometimes I’m even really, really good. I used to take it super seriously and get so angry when I hit a bad shot. I’d cuss (well, if I’m honest, I still do) and throw my clubs and have a 2 year old temper tantrum every time I didn’t hit it just perfect, which let’s face, was a lot. Like a lot a lot. But what Ash also taught me was to chill the fuck out. He would always say to me “Kellie, golf is hard, you didn’t grow up playing it, you’re not supposed to be good. Now go swing hard in case you hit it.” I heard those words from him countless times. Do you know what really sucks? I will never hear those words from him again.

I’ve played actual golf (on a green grass course – not indoors at our old business) twice now since he’s been gone. The first time, I was absolute shit. I broke down on hole 7 and just realized, it was the first time I had ever played golf without him. And I kind of hated it. See in “Kellie Golf” as Ash coined it, there was beer, there was music, if I wanted to skip a hole, I skipped a hole and if I didn’t want to putt, I didn’t putt and if I hit it in the sand, he looked the other way when I tossed it out instead of hitting it with a golf club. Kellie Golf. And he was always there to tell me where to hit it, what to hit it with and how hard to hit it. I didn’t actually have to know much of anything because he was there, supporting me, guiding me. This time I had to figure it out for myself and I was pretty shit at it. There was no music. There wasn’t a lot of laughter. And there was definitely no Ash.

Today, I played again, this time with Jack, and I sucked a little less. And I didn’t breakdown on the actual course today. No, I saved that for when I got to my mom’s to pick up Colt. But, hey, progress is progress.

So many things in our lives are so different. And I gotta say, some of it just fucking sucks. But I’m grateful that Ash taught not only me, but our boys to play as well, and we can keep trying and we can keep sucking but we can also keep having fun. Maybe next time we will play music. And we will laugh more. And we will have more fun. Because the one thing Ash might have loved more than golf was having fun, especially with Jack, Colt and me.