03/09/2026
“My good and faithful servant.”
Some of you may remember this photo from a few years ago. There was an ominous cloud that hung over the blind that day. His cancer was back. Like the other times before, we knew what lay ahead for my father in law. He was no newcomer to the fight. Since he’d started duck hunting as a little boy and even during the decade long battle he hadn’t missed a duck season. That was our mission that day. Just one more hunt before treatments started back. The good Lord must have known what we all felt that day, because it was as good of a last hunt as a man could have. Surrounded by family and friends we all experienced what calls us back every winter.
Duck season will feel different next year without him. The same way it changed after my father passed away. We’ll still go. We may even tell some stories and allow ourselves to embellish the details. We will pass on to the next generation what our fathers passed on to us. Because that’s what we do. We’re hunters. Good, bad, or otherwise we get up and go. Savor every opportunity friends, because you never know when you’ll hunt your last. I hope mine is just the same as Tony’s was with full skies, heavy straps, and surrounded by people I love.
Thank you all for your prayers over the years. It has meant a lot to us. You don’t beat cancer by surviving, as time comes for us all one day. You beat it by how you fight. I can only pray that God would grant me the grace to embrace it the same way he did. I’m sure right now he’s hearing, “my good and faithful servant, you have fought the good fight, you have finished the race, you have kept the faith.”
