Long Overdue

The title has two meanings, it’s been a  few weeks since I last wrote, and more importantly, I haven’t talked about my amazing wife Suzanne. Maybe someday I’ll write about the time I sunk in the mud up to my chest and thought I was going to have to call the local fire department to get me out. But what I need to write about now is “long overdue. ”

As fall covers us in a blanket of color, I get antsy. I know that the main event is coming soon, gun season. I bow hunt, duck hunt, and bird hunt, but my mind is always on that first breath of cold air that I’ll take on the porch of camp Ernest Living in the predawn darkness opening day. There’s one person who makes all that possible, my amazing wife Suzanne.

I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.  I know a lot of husbands say that, I mean it. After the Marine Corps, or maybe during, I was in some pretty dark holes. I really don’t know what it was. I know doctors say PTSD, anxiety, TBI, yada yada, label whatever you want. What I think… I had been one thing my entire life, a US Marine,  people say that I was good at it, I say average at best. I was cool, like riding in a friggin tank in downtown Fallujah cool. Then one day it was gone… What next?

I was having a really hard time. There was self doubt, worry, and even despair. Through all of that Suzie was my rock. She pumped me up when I was down. Believed in me, and made me want to be as great as others thought I was. Because of her I’ve made the transition to my third act in life, civilian.

So as we get closer to another gun season where I will be irritable, irrational, and completely obsessed with tracking and killing the biggest whitetail I can find, I thought it appropriate to talk about the woman who makes it all possible. She is the best thing that has ever happened, and will ever happen to me. She is an inspiration to me and many others. She has a pure soul and a mothers heart. She is amazing.

That was long overdue.