I played golf last weekend in my skins group that I’ve played with for over a decade on and off - in this group, everyone knows everybody or has played together at some point, not uncommon to get paired up with guys you’ve never met/played with, as always, shaking hands and laughing it up by end of the round.

Anyway I get paired with a guy, mid 50s, never met before and as I’m approaching him for a handshake and asking him about who’s driving the cart today etc. I quickly notice that he has a blue hankerchief tied over his neck and is unable to speak. No voicebox, not yet anyway - but recent surgery for throat cancer, and you know what he did a great job communicating throughout the round, was able to whistle his congrats and use gestures and humming noises, even the R rated stuff after duffed shots or missed putts. I believe people come into your life sometimes for a reason and this guy really put things in perspective for me, he was outside, doing the best with the shit sandwich life threw at him - not afraid to be around people or in a group that actually knew his voice prior to being diagnosed with throat cancer out of no where, wasn’t a smoker or huge drinker - just happened to him and his life forever changed.

About halfway through the round we’re getting warmed up, playing some real golf, small talk in between and he tells me that he’s divorced as well. I dug a little bit deeper, and found out that after 3 kids, 10 years this women left him when he was diagnosed - he was 3 months post-op living alone in an apartment, trying to relearn life without having a voice - and after 10 years “his ride or die” wife and life partner cashed in her chips and left him when marriage matters most . I about threw up. Suddenly all my advice and BS I love to bring up about women and divorce went out the window….the harshness the coldness and the realization that these are the types of women most men are marrying today, the hidden agendas, the false prophets, the mindset she had to have knowing she would do something like that always but never hinting at it along the way … no, I didn’t have throat cancer but if I did… I’m sure it would have only expedited the divorce process

I realize that his pain Is something that I can share with him, if my luck had run out, if I was dying - I wasn’t - but she would have 110% left me to die, and it was always this way. An extreme case I know but is it really though? Another clause for today’s modern marriage - men must maintain sufficient health and avoid any unforeseen illness or injury or accidents - or be subject to another no fault divorce at anytime. This is reality as a man, women always looking for something better - better does not include cancer