Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [109]
There is no greater gift or blessing in this world for me than spending quality time with my family. Wherever I go, people always ask me about my children. Some of you have watched my kids grow up in front of your eyes, week after week, as each season of the show passes by. As a father, I often wonder which of my kids is destined to do greater things in his or her life than I have done.
Duane Lee has the brains to be a doctor or lawyer. He has the smarts to do and be anything he wants in his life. When I look at Duane Lee today, I see a lot of my father and quite a bit of me. Duane Lee isn’t abusive like my dad was, but he knows how to put up a good fight, stand his ground, and isn’t about to back down from anyone or anything, including his old man. Whenever he and I have some sort of disagreement, I have to remind myself that I may as well be standing there arguing with myself. I thought about an analogy I once heard where someone held up a mirror and began arguing with the face in the reflection. Who’s going to win that fight?
Even though Duane Lee is six two, I still see my baby boy in his eyes, the one that always reached his hands out to me and said, “I want to go with my daddy.” Today, of course, I stand behind Duane Lee as we crash through closed doors and into the unknown when we’re on chases, because he’s grown into such a fine man and excellent bounty hunter. He and I communicate with a single look. He never has to ask me what I mean when I give an order. He gets it, and does whatever I say without hesitation. He’s tough, smart, and fearless, and I’m so proud of who he has become in his life.
Baby Lyssa loves to write and has the potential to become a great author someday, but in the meantime she has turned into quite the bounty hunter. She studied with the best woman role model I can think of—Beth. Baby Lyssa is as tough and sharp as Beth in every way. I’ll never forget the first hunt we took her on. We were chasing down a fugitive who was giving us a pretty good run, when Baby Lyssa spotted him across a parking lot. She called it in on her walkie-talkie, but was on the ground with the guy before any of us could get to her. She’s got great spunk and spirit.
At twenty-two years old, Baby Lyssa has experienced so many of life’s ups and downs. She’s been through a lot of trauma, having survived a rape, drug addiction, the death of her older sister, becoming a teenage single mom, and the betrayal of her brother. It is a relief to see that she’s found herself after so many painful years of struggling. I watched happily as she married her sweetheart in the spring of 2009 in the most beautiful ceremony on the north shore of Oahu. She was radiant in her gown, glowing with joy. We were surrounded by two hundred of our closest family and friends, who were there to help us celebrate the marriage of my oldest living daughter. I was moved by the realization that she would now hold her husband in higher esteem than me, and yet I was so relieved to see my baby finally happy and content. Baby Lyssa gave birth to her second child, Madalynn, on August 7, 2009. Even pregnancy couldn’t stop her from being in the field with her old man and brothers, helping us find fugitives. She proves to me every day that women can do it all.
There is no greater joy for a parent than knowing you’ve done all you can to prepare your children to go out into the world and seeing your influence and inspiration come to life as they mature and find their own way as adults. I have watched Baby Lyssa accept the responsibilities of becoming a parent in a different way than she did with her first child, whom she had when she was only fourteen years old, just a child herself. The attachment she has to her newborn baby is nothing short of a miracle.
Leland is the child I think has the