“Perhaps a ghost is a person and a place dreaming at the same time.” – Lauren Groff

When the black swallowtail butterfly lit on G’s head, I thought immediately of Pop.  I got the sense that she did as well.  It’s something that we’ve come to expect since moving to the farm in 2020, not quite a year after his passing.

Over the past few years, I’ve written in this column about those times when I’ve felt his spirit with me, times when I’ve been hunting in one of his favorite spots or using one of his favorite turkey calls and knew that I was not alone.

Black swallowtail, a sign from someone, or both?  I’ll let you be the judge, but I know what I believe.  Outdoors writer Brad Dye gets a visit from a gorgeous black swallowtail. Photo by Dan Dye

There’s a nice longbeard hanging in our den that celebrates one of those times, a morning in the turkey woods shared with my son when Dan and I both felt Pop’s presence.  Across the room, a nice set of antlers testifies to another of those experiences.

That December afternoon last season, a lone male cardinal joined my hunt and stayed with me for most of the evening, coming and going until the moment when one of my best bucks stepped, or more accurately, materialized from the woods opposite his perch.

As I wrote then, Native American cultures view the birds as messengers from the spirit world, and, as a result, I treasure each of my cardinal sightings.  Perhaps, I’m looking for signs, signs to fill the void of Pop’s loss, but they certainly seem to happen quite often here at the farm.

So, back to that black swallowtail.  It seems we’ve been seeing more butterflies at the farm over the past year, a beautiful reality that I attribute to the native plants and grasses we’ve been planting.  However, this butterfly felt different.

We were sitting outside on Nana’s patio that beautiful summer evening, enjoying time with Dan who was home from graduate school at Ole Miss, when the winged wonder first appeared.

It danced about in the beautifully erratic pattern that is butterfly flight before perching first on G’s head for some time and, then in turn, on mine.

As I said, I thought about Pop, and also about an article I had read not too long ago in “Garden & Gun” magazine.  The article, “A Secret Refuge for Monarchs,” pointed out several interesting facts about Danaus plexippus that were hitherto unknown to me.

Three of the most interesting were the facts that “the Hopi culture believes monarchs bring abundance and health,” the “Blackfoot people associate them with sleep and dreaming,” and, most importantly, the fact that “Mexican folklore holds that they are the souls of the deceased, come to visit relatives in the world of the living.”

The last of those details resonated in my mind as I watched the butterfly flit about between us.  l wondered if we were getting a visit from the one who most loved hanging out with his family at the “Little House”?

The reality that no one loved being at the farm more than Pop solidified my belief that while the black swallowtail was no monarch, it was certainly a sign.

I thought the Groff quote apropos of that possibility.  Our “visitor,” our “sign,” although not a ghost, certainly fit the description of “a person and a place dreaming at the same time.”

As it turns out, I had been thinking a lot of Pop in the days leading up to our butterfly encounter.  It was Labor Day weekend, which meant the opening day of dove season was but a few days away.

Since I was a boy, I have looked forward to the dove opener with eager anticipation.  It was the social event that kicked off hunting season.  As a boy, it was the first opportunity to hunt with my dad, and as a man, it was my first chance to hunt with Pop.

I’m not sure that I ever limited out as a boy, however, hunting with Pop upped the ante.  He was one of the best wing shooters I had ever seen, and I always put added pressure on myself to never let him down.

George S. Patton Jr. is credited with the phrase “pressure makes diamonds,” and that certainly reflects how my wing shooting improved under Pop’s watchful eye and instruction.  Within a season, I was limiting out on every hunt and making shots that sometimes even left the “huntmaster” impressed.

Over the years, I hunted several different fields with Pop, and there were a few years after we lost him that I didn’t dove hunt at all.  That all changed last year when our friends Doug and Buck Jones held a hunt for us in one of our favorite old spots.

I felt Pop with me last season as I hunted alongside Buck’s son Jase, and I had the same feeling this year as I surveyed the field.  That morning, with Jase to my left, my brother-in-law Michael and nephew Billy to my right, and Buck across the field, I waited for the first dove of the season.

Sadly, we lost Doug this past December, and when you lose the men (and women) that were giants in your life, there is a void that can never be filled.  I’ve lost enough of them to know that with certainty.

However, I have no doubt that Pop and Doug were with us on opening day.  I knew it with certainty when I heard Buck’s heartfelt words about family that evening as we stood beside our trucks counting birds, reliving the afternoon hunt, and reminiscing about our hunts of the past.

Call me crazy, but cardinals and butterflies will always mean more to me.  They will always make me smile, even through the tears.  Until next time, here’s to family, to the signs that what is lost is never far from us if we will only take the time to look, and here’s to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.