This hole was a lot of things, but
a stranger to hope it was not. The known results of a seemingly great tee shot
on 13, only came after you paid the toll of walking up the hill and having the
putting surface come into view. Roman knew better than to get his hopes too
high; no matter how good a tee shot looked flying into the 13th green,
especially on this day. Over the past few hours, his enthusiasm and fervor had
been trampled on and paved over far too many times to indulge such a notion
like high hopes.

Closer and closer the ball tumbled
toward the hole, seemingly fearless of the earth that would inevitably
disappear from under its path, should it remain on its current trajectory.
Roman moved to his right to get a better view from behind the ball while never
breaking his sniper-like glare. Pacing toward the hole, his right hand began to
raise with only three feet left to go. Losing a bit of its desired momentum,
Roman began to cheer, “Go ball! Go!” And go it did, as if being called to the
cup like a siren calls a sailor. At the two-foot mark, Roman’s hand raised high
above his head and hung there for a few seconds. With pure elation he plunged
his hand back down toward the ground in perfect unison with the ball as it fell
over the edge of the cup, like an orchestral conductor coalescing the abrupt
and final note of their magnum opus concerto.

She
hasn’t even begun to process the chapters of emotions she will wade through
while she attempts to reconcile your death. Time will pass. Pain will turn to
mourning, mourning to sorrow, then sorrow will grow into grief; and once the
grief is able to metastasize to an unstable heart, it will weaken her to the
point of collapse. Grieving long enough, through bitterness and rancid
indignation, will burden her soul so greatly that the very foundation of her
existence will crack and crumble beneath her feet. She will be swallowed whole
by an endless abyss, a dispassionate void of inescapable suffering that she is
ill-equipped to navigate or remotely understand. She will be rendered hopeless
without even so much as a modicum of defense against it; and that Roman, speaks
only to the consequences that you bring down upon her, and nothing of the
rebuke you evoke upon your own well-being.