Tony came walking up the eighteenth fairway with a smile on his face and a swagger in his gait. His approach shot to the final green had settled into a greenside bunker, and he seemed to be confident of getting it onto the green without difficulty. He waved at Brian, who had arrived by car to fetch him home at the end of the game. Brian was now standing at the side of the green, watching the players complete their rounds.
Then suddenly Tony disappeared from view. Obviously the bunker was a little deeper than Brian thought. After a pause and a silence, there came the swish of a swinging club, and then nothing. No sign of a ball. Another pause, another swish…nothing. Brian could imagine the smile vanishing from Tony’s face. Tony was given to mood swings. A few more swings, and a few curses followed, and finally a reluctant white golf ball plopped onto the green. Tony emerged from the underworld with a dark look. Clearly his scorecard was now in ruins. Brian could not help a rueful smile, and, quoting a popular television advert of the time, he said, “Tony, happiness is a cigar called ‘Hamlet’.”
Thoughts of Tony came back to him today. He was a fine handsome man and a good priest. He was also a diarist. All his life he wrote a personal diary. Each evening he sat down at his desk, at the end of the day, and wrote an account of his life that day, and some personal observations about life and people. They would make interesting reading, as Tony was a man of definite opinions on many things.
Once, Brian had mentioned diaries to his counsellor. He, too, kept diaries at that time, but not written accounts, just appointment diaries, with some personal notes in. From these he could recall what he was doing on any given day. Clare, his counsellor had observed that people often keep diaries as a way of keeping their own lives ‘on the map’. They often feel that there lives are unnoticed, and this is their way of giving true value to their own existence. Brian realised that he had done that very thing, until the day arrived that he did not need to do it anymore. When he left the priesthood, and went to Maggie and Michael, he stopped keeping a diary. He did not need one anymore.
Erris Poetry 