My daughter and I flew to North Padre Island this week to spend time with my grandmother. Her health is declining. Moments feel slower. More meaningful. Finite.
We trick or treated on the island.
We drove the golf cart along the shoreline.
We swam in my aunt Lori's pool.
It felt like childhood and farewell braided together.
My aunt and my uncle from Rockport came to visit. They’ve believed in me through every chapter. Encouraged me when I doubted myself. Never once tried to shape my life for their comfort. Only supported, nudged, and lifted.
My uncle has played a huge role in shaping how I see land and legacy. He carries a deep respect for creation and the natural world. His belief in ethical stewardship took root in me long before I ever realized it. A lot of the way I raise my daughter outdoors, a lot of the way I move through the woods comes from quiet lessons learned by watching him live it, not talk about it.
And my aunt has spent her life serving others quietly. No spotlight. No announcement. Just steady, genuine love that doesn’t need to be seen to be real.
Not long after my wife and I moved to Colorado, when she was very pregnant, we visited my aunt and uncle in Taos, New Mexico. They took us out to “The Mesa”, an off grid community full of people living on the edges. Some rebuilding. Some hiding. Some simply needing space from the world.
We pulled up to a double wide alone in the desert. A man came out holding an AK-47 and staring us down. My stomach sank. My wife gripped my arm. Pregnancy makes danger feel sharper and close. My aunt smiled and nonchalantly said, “There’s Dale.”
Everything shifted. His face softened. He lowered the rifle and greeted her warmly. She’d come to bring food and clothes. She saw him as a person, and he remembered he was one.
That’s who my aunt is.
And that is who my uncle is too.
Quiet strength.
Service without performance.
Roots deep in the good and the real.
⸻
Yesterday, our close family friends came over. The wife has spent sixteen months in chemo. Sixty eight treatments. Breast cancer beaten. Lymphatic cancer beaten. Still fighting lung cancer. A warrior in every sense of the word.
We spent the afternoon laughing, sharing stories, and spending quality time together.
As things wound down, the wife brought over a gift in a bag. I thought it was for my daughter.
Instead she sat by my aunt and told a story. She remembered a morning she felt exhausted and ready to quit treatment. My aunt appeared in her chemo room without warning. She brought lotion and rubbed her arms and feet to comfort her. She didn’t tell a soul. The craziest thing of all is that my aunt doesn’t even really know her that well, as she is my aunt Lori’s friend. Lori heard it with us for the first time, I could see it in her face.
She said that moment gave her the strength to keep fighting.
My eyes filled. The room stilled. No performance. Only love.
Quiet.
Human.
Sacred.
⸻
I grew up Christian. I’ve read the Bible through and through more times than I can count. I graduated from a lockdown evangelical military academy built around being soldiers for God. After that I joined The Honor Academy, the same one later exposed in the documentary Shiny Happy People for harming kids. That experience burned me deeply. So when people say "you just need to plug into a church again", I don’t get angry, but I know healing takes reflection, not pressure.
Still, I see too much delicate design in this world to believe it’s random. The light of the sun delicately reflecting off of a dew drop on a pine needle.
Flowing water.
The instinct to protect one's child.
The pull toward goodness when nobody’s watching.
I believe in a creator I fear and respect. I feel close to Him in the silence before dawn, in a deer stand or on a river bend, on a ridge where the sun dips below the horizon.
When I think about the life of Jesus, I think about humility. I think about washing feet. I think about showing up where pain lives.
This is how my aunt and uncle live. They don’t talk about love. They practice it. They restore dignity quietly. They ease suffering without needing credit. They show us how to live by living well.
⸻
After I shared this writing with my aunt, she sent me a message. She said that when Christians do things for others, we should do it humbly and quietly before the Lord so as to bring glory to Him, and that this is her aim. She asked that I not mention her name. So I will not. Her act remains private, as she intended, and what matters most is the spirit behind it.
We need more of that in the world.
Not louder opinions. Softer hearts.
Not public gestures. Private goodness.
Not judgment. Grace.
I’ve got a long way to go. I’m still learning how to carry myself with more selfless humility.
But what I witnessed this weekend was holy in the truest sense of the word. And I’m grateful my daughter witnessed it too. Even if she can’t name it yet, her heart felt it.
Seeds take time, but they grow.
FIELD
Before a hunt, wear your full kit and move through leaves, gravel, and brush around your house. Practice walking. Identify and eliminate noise points. Tape metal buckles. Trim loose fabric. Silence kills more deer than any camo pattern ever will.
MINDSET
Master the basics when the stakes are low, so they hold when the stakes are high.
In the woods:
Practice wind checks until it becomes second nature.
Move slow until patience isn’t something you force, but something you are.
Read sign until your eyes pick up detail without effort.
At home:
Speak calmly under stress.
Keep your gear organized.
Do ordinary tasks with care.
Show up before anyone asks you to.
At work:
Prepare before the meeting.
Follow through on commitments.
Treat small opportunities like big ones.
Skill doesn’t turn on only in the field.
Excellence is a habit that follows you everywhere.
Train the fundamentals in every environment.
They sharpen the hunter.
They sharpen the husband.
They sharpen the man.
The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.
— John Wooden
What’s one thing you can do this week that brings grace into someone else’s life, without them knowing it came from you?
