They say that you never truly appreciate what you have until it’s gone. On an April night in 2015, for about 20 minutes, I knew exactly what it felt like to lose my dad. He had his first heart attack in our Arkansas duck camp in 2001, and while it provided a wake up call, it certainly didn’t scare him straight. He lived a little healthier and stopped smoking for a while, but eventually eased back into cigars (had been 3 packs of Winston Lites a day), and his diet fell off a bit. He was better than before, but still didn’t maintain the diet or stay away from the cigars. He rocked along, got around really well and was basically back to normal until April of 2015. He was with my mom at home in Sumter, and my sister happened to be in town from Spartanburg. She also happened to be a nurse practitioner for one of the top cardiac surgeons in SC at the time. He called her back to the bedroom and told her he felt like he was having a heart attack, so they called 911 and she drove him to Toumey. By the time she got him there, he was not doing well at all, sweating profusely/in pain/passing out, so they took him straight into surgery where they determined he had to get to Columbia to the Cath Lab. He was coding pretty frequently (that’s medical for dying), but they got him in the ambulance and fortunately allowed my sister to ride in the back with him. She was texting me updates. They got to Shaw and he was really struggling. He coded multiple times and they were getting longer. The driver pulled over and made the call to go back to Toumey, but my sister wouldn’t allow it. She told them his only chance was the Cath Lab in Columbia, so they continued on. He was dead in that ambulance twice between Shaw and Providence. My sister texted me that he had died and the texts stopped. I remember standing in my kitchen with Caison and going through the laundry list of regrets that a hard headed son would have accumulated through 35 years with his father. I was more regretful and angry at myself than sad. We had experienced a million cool things together, but I certainly wasn’t ready to be done. Fortunately, I didn’t have to be. My sister called to say they had gotten him back up and running and were pulling into Providence. By the time I got there, he was in the Cath Lab and she assured me that he was out of the woods. Quad bypass followed a few days later, and he fairly quickly recovered to start making new memories in the woods. I promised myself to try to do as many of those undone things as possible and to be intentional about making time for him.

Fast forward to last July, and I was fortunate enough to finally buy a piece of property on the black river with two partners that will ensure that my family will have a place to enjoy the outdoors forever. My dad always made sure to take me and to make sure I had places to hunt growing up, and it felt great to be able to return the favor. I can’t imagine how many kills he sacrificed to watch, teach, and give me the opportunity to screw it up. I was proud to be able to have a place that he could enjoy.

We have been very intentional about our turkeys and our turkey habitat. We went through the trouble to electric fence 10 acres for chufa to keep hogs out, and all of our planting and mowing is centered around creating the best turkey habitat possible. Though we inherited a pretty strong turkey population, we wanted to really take it easy on them this spring, and only shoot 6 (2 per partner). I knew who would account for my first one.

One of my partners is a friend that I met as a Freshman at Clemson in ‘97, and we have been great friends since. He grew up with more or less a single mother, as his dad wasn’t really involved. He ended up being sort of part of our family and spent Thanksgiving with us every year I was in college, and rarely missed a trip to AR with my dad, even when I couldn’t make it. He and my dad have remained really close through the years, so we made a plan for the three of us to get my dad on a bird at our new spot.

My partner popped the cherry by putting his 7 year old son on a great first bird on the Sunday of youth weekend. After that, the priority shifted to getting my old man one in the swamp.

One thing about turkey hunting with my dad is that he doesn’t see very well, and he makes up for that by being damn near deaf. I have to sit beside him (on his good ear side) and keep him posted on what is happening. He famously says “the best thing about being a deaf turkey Hunter is that if I hear one, it is either time to sit down, or past time to sit down”. So, it presents a challenge.

We made a plan to head down April 1, build a fire, cook a steak, tell some stories, stay up too late, and try to find one in the morning. The steak, stories and bourbon were fantastic, and we set out the next morning walking from the cabin down into the black river bottom. We stood about 300 yards from the cabin, and a bird gobbled really early. That’s important with my dad because it takes a little extra time to get him set. He’s also still about 260 and at 67 years old, he’s no bobcat. We got set exactly where I would’ve hoped, the bird was screaming, and I had every ounce of confidence that this would go just as scripted. The bird pitched down about 75 yards on a small ridge, strutted and gobbled a few times, and walked the ridge out to the road to our right. There had been a small sliver of water between the ridge and the road right in front of us, and he didn’t feel like crossing it that day. We listened as he worked up the road away from us and ended up planting his flag damn near in the yard of the cabin. We eased that way and he gobbled enough to allow us to move confidently toward him. There was no good setup for this deal, but we made do and got my dad hidden in some canes just off the road. I jumped off the raised road in some palmettos and almost before I could get set, the bird gobbles. I cut back at him hard, he answered and I cut him off with more aggressive cuts. He strutted all the way down the road until my dad ended the hunt at 18 steps. My dad and buddy had gotten an awesome show, and all I could do was watch my old man and listen to the drumming and wings dragging.

It was very cool to be able to share that with those guys and to give my dad what he has given me so many times. We toasted and laughed and told stories and took pictures. I’ve learned to take the time to appreciate and soak up these moments. You never know how many any of us have.