Should you widen the fairways and allow for generous leeway, you’ll see where this could be categorized as a golf story. (Be gentle; it’s personal.)

After all, confusion over some subscriptions to golf magazines was an indication that my mother’s condition was very real. Tough as it was to accept at first, it became even more difficult later on. The most confident and self-reliant person ever to grace my world, she was robbed of so much by dementia, but through it all Marjorie McCabe remained incomparably special and only late in the game did I read something that impacted me profoundly and put so much in perspective.

“Remember, the dementia patient is not giving you a hard time. The dementia patient is having a hard time.”

Oh, how that encapsulates mom perfectly because it wasn’t in her nature to be difficult or to impose upon anyone. Hers was a life beautifully lived and spiritually fulfilled and the fact that she died Dec. 5 on her 92nd birthday intrigues me. It was as if her mission on this earth was fully complete in a neat and definitive circle.

Which prompts me to return to the original point – that this can be loosely described as a golf story. Here’s why:

In those wonderful years when I was part of a small, but golf-happy staff at “Golfweek,” my mother constantly searched for the magazine at supermarket checkout lines. No luck, of course, because it was subscription only. She had faithfully bought the Boston Globe for years and saved piles of sports sections during the marvelous years when I was privileged to be on staff there. The Golfweek matter disappointed her, however. At least until I got her a subscription.

Seemingly, mission accomplished, and it was always fun to hear her talk about whatever story that I had written that week. But then came a few warning signs that things were amiss. “Golfweek” would be there when I visited, but “Golf Digest” started to appear and so, too, did “Golf Magazine.”

It occurred to me that mom couldn’t distinguish between the different magazines, so she simply subscribed to virtually anything that had “Golf” in it. Heck, she had more golf magazine subscriptions than I did. It was the first real signal – at least to me – that this was a condition likely to grow worse.

Some days, the visits afforded me a chance to breeze through her latest golf subscriptions and that always made me wonder: What would happen if she started reading respected colleagues such as Jaime Diaz (“Golf Digest”) and Michael Bamberger (“Golf Magazine”) and realized they wrote circles around her son?

Then I remembered mom’s unyielding love. Her loyalty to my golf stories had always struck a chord with me. It reminded of a time decades earlier when our family’s embrace of the late and great Boston Globe columnist George Frazier was owed not only to the man’s brilliance with words, but also to his being my mother’s cousin.

They weren’t very close cousins, mind you – George Frazier was born in 1911, my mother in 1930 – but George was always very good to his aunt (my mother’s mother) and blood is blood, so the fact that George Frazier wrote in a style that was unmatched was a source of joy.

Especially when he would write his iconic “duende” columns (George Frazier didn’t invent the word, but he sure as heck provided it with a vibrant life all its own), the Globe was a must read. On those times, my father would slide the newspaper over to me – folded perfectly so that the Frazier column was prominent – and a sense of wonder enveloped me.

“The real fun, though, is in citing examples of those who have it – or, for that matter, those who don’t. Marilyn Monroe had duende, but Jayne Mansfield didn’t. Benny Goodman does, but Artie Shaw doesn’t and never did. Fred Astaire, yes, but Gene Kelly, no. Sinatra, oui; Crosby, non. Is that helpful?”

Ah, Frazier and his duende filled me with pride to know there was a family connection to such an accomplished writer. But it would be embellishment to say he or his writing inspired me.

Truth is, never was the direction in my career inspired by a writer or his or her work. Rather, my journey was connected to the memory of parents and aunts and uncles and family friends who loved to sit around a table in a small kitchen and laugh robustly for hours in a timeless manner.

They told stories.

When blessed years later to be in position to put words together for newspapers and magazines, an unfathomable joy accompanied it – assignments at golf meccas and hallowed playgrounds and endless warmth in the framework of sport that I cherished.

Maui and Honolulu in January? Paradise, of course, and Torrey Pines-to-Pebble wasn’t shabby, either. Neither was the Florida swing in March or a certain April pilgrimage to Augusta. June was the U.S. Open at Shinnecock or Oakmont, Pinehurst or Winged Foot and those majestic links of Scotland and England always beckoned in July.

Spread this over 20-plus years and, yes, all of it was beyond my wildest dreams. Yet none of it would have been possible without order on the home front, which was provided in rich layers by an incredible wife and the invaluable assistance of my mother.

Mom was uber before uber – with a warmer face, better driving and friendlier charges, of course. Every request of her was weighted in my favor, it seems, but she always responded with love and care and a desire to help me in my work.

Honestly, I’m not sure what mom thought about golf. But my guess is, she loved that I loved the game – which seems to be the same thing.