CHASING SHADOWS

A shadow of movement zipped across the forest floor. Peter tried to convince himself it was his imagination. He stared at that spot for thirty more seconds. Nothing. He listened. If the turkey had indeed quietly closed the distance as his father said, he might hear it rustling. His father had stopped calling and his quiet stillness seemed impossible for Peter to mimic. The boy tried, but caught himself fidgeting every few minutes. The stern reprimand he expected never came. His father did not make a sound. His father did not move.

                Finally, Peter heard a whisper. “Get ready.”

                Peter gently lifted his shotgun to peer down the barrel and a turkey gobbled so close it seemed he could feel his veins vibrate. Peter jerked back in surprise and had to stop himself from calling out to his father. He wanted to ask where it was. He wanted to tap his father on the shoulder, but he was afraid to move. His father had told him not to. 

                Peter listened to the silence. He knew birds had to be chirping. He knew squirrels were probably chattering somewhere. He knew the breeze must be rustling the leaves overhead, but he wanted to hear the turkey and in his focus on that, it was only the silence that registered in his ears. 

He tried to look at his father beside him without moving his head, but could only tell for sure that he was there. He could not tell which direction his father was looking in. Peter had been told that a turkey might see him blink, so he sat there listening, staring into the brush ahead of him, and trying to subdue his trembling with slow breaths. It was not working. 

He heard a rustle. There was movement to his right. At least, he thought there was.

“Shoot,” his father whispered. 

Peter pulled his head away from the stock just long enough to see the turkey strutting to his right. He swung the barrel and fired too quickly. The turkey slapped its wings into the dirt and stumbled, but in a moment was up and running.

Peter’s father grabbed the boy’s sleeve near the shoulder and pulled him up. “We have to get him before he gets away. Don’t reload and stay close.” His father ran after the wounded bird. 

Excited, startled and a bit confused, Peter hesitated before opening the chamber to verify his 20-gauge was unloaded. Then he jump to his feet and sprinted after his dad, making sure to keep the shotgun pointed in a safe direction.  

His father had increased the distance between them and was now entering the brush line. Just as Peter was a ready to crash head first into the bushes, he saw a turkey rush by through a small opening into the woods to his left. It looked to Peter as if it were limping. 

“Dad,” he half-whispered, half-yelled. His dad could not have heard him running through the brush. If he chased down his father, they would surely lose the tom. But if he chased down and finished off the wounded bird, his father would be proud of him. His father hated wounding game. Peter could imagine his father’s reaction when he realized they had lost the turkey. Following the turkey would be a direct disobedience to his father’s direction. But he had seen the turkey go into the woods. His father was leading him in the opposite direction. Peter had to get the turkey. It was important. And just like that, he chose to follow the wild bird. His father would soon realize what happened and be right behind him. If not, Peter could find him later. 

                After five minutes running in the direction the turkey had led him, Peter stopped to listen for it. He heard nothing, but was certain the turkey went in the direction he was headed. How far could it actually go if it was wounded? He pressed on a bit further but at a slower, more cautious pace. 

                If he could just get the turkey. His father would be proud. He would finally be a true turkey hunter. His bird would be the one his father smoked for all the neighbors to enjoy. And he would be sure to tell them it was his when they commented on how it tasted. It would be his turkey, his success, his glory. He just had to get that turkey. He had to find it. He had to.

                After another ten minutes chasing shadows and rustling sounds, Peter’s stomach began to burn with nervousness. He had not seen or heard the turkey at all since chasing after it. Now, what he saw or heard seemed only half-real. He realized had no idea where he was. Worse than all of that, he had no idea where his father was. His father—whom he had disobeyed. 

  Fear, confusion, and shame seemed to consume him from the inside.

                As he stood there wanting to cry, he realized he was chasing a shadow. He should have never left his father. He should have never went his own way. What if he could not find his way back? What if his father could not find him in time? What if he had to spend the night alone in the woods? His father would be angry. Peter was afraid of being found. But he was more afraid of not being found. 

                The woods no longer held the promise of adventure. Now, the shadows seemed to move toward him—a creeping darkness threatening to engulf him. What had he done? He fell to his knees and shouted. “Dad! Dad! I need you!”

                There was no answer. How far had they run apart from each other? Peter searched for a clue to where he was. Each tree was different, but contained a sameness Peter could not decipher. And the brush was like an unending  tangle of branches and leaves and thorns. Which way had he come from? Which way was the road? Which way was his father?

                Peter took off running in the direction he thought was right. After a few branches slapped him in the face, he stopped. Was this the right direction? How could he know? His father had mentioned something about going to the west. That would be toward where the sun had just set. He ran a few yards, but the branches seemed to be reaching out for him, so he slowed down. A few minutes later, darkness had overwhelmed everything. 

                Peter called for his father again. Then he dropped to his knees and began to whimper. A cold crept around the edges of his neck. It felt as if it slithered around his shoulders. All he could think was that he did not want to die. “Daddy, where are you?” he said more to himself than anything else. 

                He heard it first through his own sniffling, but it was so quiet he thought he must have imagined it. Had someone actually said his name? He tried to subdue his breathing and listen to the silence.  For some time, it seemed he could only hear the sound of his own breath. 

                Something rustled to his right. It sounded like a growl at first, but ended in something like a hiss. He knew coyotes hunted at night. He imagined snakes and spiders and monsters from nightmares he thought he had forgotten. 

Peter closed his eyes and started to weep. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

             From the opposite direction, he heard something else. 

“Peter!” This time it was loud and familiar. He opened his eyes to see a light shining toward him. “I’m here, Peter. It’s okay.”

                A moment later, his father consumed him in an embrace. Peter’s fear and shame and confusion evaporated. In that moment, nothing else in the world existed for Peter but his father’s love.

                That knowledge, that clarity, changed everything.

The Off Season?

My kids love softball and baseball, and we are now entering the heart of those seasons. Seasons which often coincide with fishing and spending time at the lake with family. We often have to choose one over the other. But as I watched my 9-year old pitch in his first game the other day, it struck me that baseball and softball are great sports and that many of the things that make them great have commonalities with hunting and spending time outdoors. 

It seems to me that whether we are trolling along the shores of Lake McConaughy or skirting the turkey woods or tossing a ball in the backyard, we are ultimately spending time together. We are building relationships. We are making memories. We are giving ourselves to each other because that is what love asks of us. 

I suppose I hunt because my father took the time to share one of his passions with me. He sacrificed hunting his own game so he could teach me to sit quietly, to see more clearly, and to listen with more focus. Believe me, that took a great deal of patience and time and I never did get as good at it as he was. Yet, he sacrificed his own success for the mere hope that I may have some of my own simply because love asked that of him.

I continue to hunt and fish and the memories my parents gave to me are as much a part of today as they were when we made them so long ago. I am creating new memories with my children. Memories of watching a first turkey strut toward our blind, of reeling in a late summer walleye, of just sitting quietly in the hopes that a deer may venture into the open, or of teaching them how to throw a ball better.

My kids love softball and baseball and because they do I now love those sports more than I ever have. So during this season, I trade one memory for another. It is a trade I gladly make because my kids want to experience the things that make softball and baseball great sports. And I want to see them experience those things. 

Even if they do not realize it, they are learning many similar lessons they learn in the outdoors. They learn it is okay to fail, and that failure is a great teacher. They make mistakes. They see their teammates make mistakes. They see coaches and umpires make mistakes. And then after those mistakes, they see that the game goes on. They learn the importance of perseverance.  They learn that others rely on them. They learn that they often need help. They learn there are rules, and, more importantly, ethics that must be followed. They get to experience the satisfaction of a game well played and the fruits of extra effort. Most of all, they develop relationships, and I am honored to be a part of that.  

My kids may not become professional ball players, or even play beyond the next few years, but for this brief moment in their lives they get to play the game with joy and passion. I pray they remember the beauty of it. 

And later this summer, when we are fishing on the lake or target shooting in preparation for fall, I will thank God for the children He has entrusted me with. I will thank Him for the opportunity to sacrifice some of the things I want for some of the things they want. And I will thank Him for the greatest sacrifice of all. 

Then I will try to teach my children to the best of my ability because love asks at least that much of me.

A SIMPLE THING

God is a poet. 

He wrote us into his story and allowed us to roam free within its pages. But they are still His pages and He can arrange them and edit them in any way He chooses. He chose to write some of us in as hunters.

I never knew it. I never appreciated it. I never even thought about it much. But I was one of the lucky ones. 

My dad loved me as much as humanly possible and he shared himself with me in ways that eventually brought me closer to the truth. He was a man who loved without words. He was a man who showed us how much he cared by his actions. He was a man who gave everything to his family and his friends and asked nothing in return. 

I was born into a devout Catholic family. My parents never missed Mass on Sundays. My mother said and continues to say the rosary every day. They tried to teach us how to live by what they did. And I wish I could say it took sooner than it did, but some of us are just slow learners. 

Now my dad was not a “bible thumper.” I did not see him reading scriptures all that often, but I saw him participate in the Mass and I saw him participate in life. What was more important and what eventually influenced who I wanted to become was how he participated.

I have heard it said that God has two great books: the inspired words of the Bible and the created world he wrote our lives into. Unfortunately, I ignored the first book for much of my life. But God’s other book, the book he breathed life into and set free because He is the ultimate creator, because He loves it, and because He loves us and wants to speak to us through it, has spoken to me for as long as I can remember. I felt I could always hear Him there, even if, at times, I did not realize it. 

My father introduced me to outdoors by taking me fishing at a local pond. He taught me to hunt in a goose pit. He presented to me the sometimes harsh beauty of life set free. God’s words, whether in the Bible or written into a lonely wildflower are sometimes hard to understand. And sometimes, they are just plain hard.

I have discovered those words hiking through a cornfield, or wading across a warm-water slew, of often walking in my father’s tracks. I have heard them in the lonely call of a goose on cold winter morning or in the promise of a quiet rustling of leaves. By taking me hunting, my father offered me a true taste of freedom. He gave me the opportunity to listen to a whisper from a familiar voice I had never known. 

These moments are so much more than memories. They are the moments that set the cadence of a story not yet finished. They are the sounds of words without end. They are proof that no matter where I have been, I have never been alone. And they are an understanding that everything we do matters. 

What a simple thing for a dad to do - to take his child hunting. The impact on my life cannot be measured.

BEING FOUND

She walked a little slower through the woods without her dad. For the first time, she was on her own. She knew how to get to the turkey blind he had set up the week before. She knew it was right through the next tree line, over a mostly dry creek, and then a straight shot across an open field. She knew all she had to do once she got there was to set up the decoy, cluck a bit on the box call her father had taught her to use, and wait. Her dad would come an hour later to check on her. He would hopefully find her standing over her first self-guided turkey.

Her fingers trembled a bit and her stomach turned with nervousness. The woods were different without her dad. They seemed to hold secrets she had not noticed before and some of those secrets felt dark and creepy. She had waved to her father and smiled when he went to the other side of the hill. Now, a part of her wished he was with her. She had thought she was ready to be on her own. Fear tried to convince her otherwise.

She began to walk with a more determined speed, with the single purpose of reaching the blind. She would be safe in the blind. She would be hunting and the unknown and unseen fears lurking in shadows she had never noticed before would not matter anymore. She remembered hearing coyotes howl while walking out at night with her father. It was a sound she would never forget. Did coyotes attack people, she wondered.

A branch snapped and something crashed through the woods to her right. Was it coming at her? Panic ripped at her back and she ran. She could see the light of the field ahead of her and it looked like freedom. Still running, she turned back to see if she was being chased. It felt as if she were. Just then, she tripped and tumbled into the creek bed. A stab of pain pierced her ankle.

She thought she cried out loud, but could not remember. And then, lying there, dirty and in pain she realized how deep the crevice was which she had fallen into. It’s walls were steep so steep on either side of her that even if she could have stood without intense pain shooting through her ankle she would not have been about to climb out.

She screamed. “Daddy! Daddy! I need you!”

He did not answer her. He would not come to look for her for at least an hour and then he would go to the blind first. A slithering chill began to creep down her back.

Unable to do anything else, she sobbed. Her fear of not being found battled with the shame of failing on her first hunt alone. Before long, the sobbing and the fear and the shame overtook her emotions and despair tickled the edge of her thoughts. What if her dad did not find her? What if he could not get her out before the temperatures of the night began to shock her system into hypothermia? She began to shiver as she waited and continued to whimper.

As the hour passed and she could no longer see the sun, fatigue overcame her and she could not fight the urge to sleep.

Then she heard a voice calling her name. It seemed like a distant memory. It was familiar, yet so distant it could not be real. She wanted to believe in it. She wanted to call back to it. She longed for it to come closer. Then she fell asleep once again.

She awoke sweating and unsure of where she was or how she got there. However, she knew she wanted out and she knew she could not get out alone.

A turkey gobbled and she remembered what had happened and realized it was almost dark. Then, she heard her father’s voice. His voice was clear and he was close and he was calling her name.

She called out. “Daddy! Help me.”

He ran over to the edge of the crevice, jumped into it and held his daughter in a warm embrace.

She had been found and her tears were no longer from shame or fear or despair, but of joy.