The Women of Duck Commander (22 page)

TOUGH LOVE

Miss Kay

I love my boys! In the early days, the three oldest ones and I had to stick together just to survive. By the time Jep came along, Phil was an entirely different person than he was when Alan, Jase, and Willie were little. But in those early days, the oldest sons and I endured some lean, frightening, and difficult times.

Once Phil got his life straightened out by God’s grace, I hoped my hardest days were behind me, and in many ways they were. But I did face two more situations that completely tore me up. In their teenage years, both Alan and Jep strayed from the way they were raised and did things they should not have done. These two boys reminded me of the Bible story about the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32). They both went their own ways for about two years, and those experiences were very hard on our family. One thing that was very difficult for me was that they were both drinking, and I especially hated that because I had such bad memories of what alcohol had done to my mother and to Phil.

Today, I have a true passion to help people fight for their marriages whenever I can. I also come into contact with a lot of women whose children are far from their families and far from the Lord. Sometimes, when people only know me from
Duck Dynasty
, they think I have spent my whole life in the kitchen, happily feeding my tight-knit family. They do not think I could ever truly understand real pain, especially the depth of the pain of a broken marriage or a wayward child. I do. From years of personal experience with the pain, disappointment, and devastation, I really do understand.

I read the Bible a lot, and it has some great stories about miracles. One time, God completely dried up an entire sea so a whole nation of people could cross it on dry land and escape an army that was trying to kill them. We do not see many miracles like that one today, but I know God is still able to do them and that He does all kinds of other miracles every day. I have seen them, and I have even experienced them in my own life.

My loving, happy marriage with Phil is a miracle.
Duck Dynasty
is a miracle, not because our family has a television show, but because our family is
together
. Most people have no idea how close Phil and I came to breaking up years ago. We are only with each other right now because God did something miraculous in enabling us to forgive the pain of the past and to make a new start. The fact that all our boys are serving God today is also a miracle. Marriages can be healed, and prodigals can come home. I want everyone who is suffering in these kinds of situations to know that, and I hope this book will bring hope and encouragement to all who are going through what I went through years ago.

A
MAZING
L
ITTLE
B
OY,
A
MAZING
M
AN

Alan was a remarkable little boy. I truly do not know what I would have done without him during the years when Phil and I had so many problems. I did not live close to anyone in my biological family, and I was not involved in church during that time, so I had very little help or support. But when we ran into problems when Phil was drinking, Alan always stepped up to the plate. I did not have to ask him to help; he just did what needed to be done. As early as seven years old, he could feed and bathe babies almost as well as I could!

At a time when most boys his age were playing Little League baseball, Alan was taking care of his little brothers Willie and Jase. He did not get to do a lot of the fun things many children do; he helped me and definitely became my “main man.” He was a much better caretaker for the younger boys than anyone I could have hired; he was totally trustworthy and dependable.

One time, Phil got more drunk than usual. It was scary, and I had to deal with a lot that night. In the middle of it all, Alan said to me, “It’s okay, Momma. I fed the baby [Willie], and I burped him and changed his diaper. I fed Jason too. We’re good. Don’t worry about us.”

Willie and Jase were so young at that time, they could not begin to understand everything Alan did and everything he sacrificed so they could stay alive and healthy. They will never know what all he did for them and for me. There were
times I did not think I could go on, but Alan made me feel like I could.

Alan always loved his family. One of my favorite stories about him is that as a teenager, he bought his own car. It was old, but it ran, and he paid for it with money he earned working at a grocery store and doing other odd jobs. He also helped Phil and me a lot at Duck Commander, but at that time we could not pay him anything.

Phil’s truck broke down one day, and we could not afford to fix it. We really needed that vehicle and didn’t know what to do. Without saying a word to us, Alan sold his car and gave Phil the money to get a new truck. Then Alan started over saving money to buy himself another car. That’s the kind of thoughtful, generous person he is.

Alan was an amazing little boy, and he is an amazing man now, a man of strong character and integrity. He had more opportunities to be around my grandmother Nannie than the other boys, and he caught some of his heart from her. As I mentioned earlier, he also had a close relationship with a retired preacher, one of our neighbors in Arkansas, and I think that man had a powerful influence on him too.

Alan grew up to be a big help to Phil in the early days of Duck Commander and then to become a great preacher for many years. He still preaches from time to time, but now, he and his wife, Lisa, both work at Duck Commander. Sometimes, his work as a preacher makes people nervous. I am always sorry to hear about this, because he is the one who enabled the others in our family to be where they are today. Even though he has not been seen on
Duck Dynasty
as
much as the other boys, our family would not be complete without him. Everyone loves and respects him so much, and he is a great blessing to all of us.

A S
AD
S
URPRISE

In between being an amazing little boy and becoming an amazing man, Alan had some rough times. I was totally shocked when he began to change during his high school years. I will not write the whole story because it is Alan’s to tell. Lisa has already shared some of it in this book, and Phil writes about it in greater detail in his book,
Happy, Happy, Happy
. I just want to say that I was surprised and heartbroken to find out about the choices Alan had made and the way he was living.

I only knew Alan was drinking because Jase told me. At first I thought there was no way it could be true—that Alan would never drink or get drunk because of everything he saw Phil go through. But it was true. One time when Alan and his friends got caught misbehaving, Phil told Alan he was disappointed in him and reminded Alan of what he (Phil) had put me through when Alan was young. I still remember hearing that lecture and Phil’s saying at the end, “I hope you’ll learn.” Alan admits today that he did not learn.

Alan’s behavior did not get any better. When he finished high school, Phil and I had to make a really hard decision. We told Alan he could not keep living in our house and do the things he was doing. We gave him a choice: he could straighten up, or he could go live with Phil’s sister in New Orleans. He chose New Orleans! We
hated to see him go but felt it was the best thing for our family as a whole. We did visit him a few times, but mostly we prayed for him.

Alan had a run-in with the police one Sunday morning while he was in New Orleans and as best he can recall, one of the officers said to him, “Let me talk to you. What are your mom and dad doing right now?”

“They’re in church, where they always go,” Alan answered.

“I knew,” said the officer, “that you were raised different.” In other words, the policeman could tell Alan was not what some people might call a “common criminal.” The officer went on to speak some very strong words: “You have just done something really bad. Whatever you’re doing here, pack it up. Go home and live like your mom and dad; go live like you were raised. I don’t know your parents, but I have a feeling they will welcome you back like the Prodigal Son.”

Phil and I had not been able to get through to Alan or influence him to change his ways while he was living with us, but that policeman in New Orleans sure got through to him. Sometimes we wonder if that policeman was an angel. Whether he was or was not, God definitely used him to get Alan back where he needed to be.

Alan left “the Big Easy” right away and came back to us. He started walking with God again; he reconnected with Lisa. He and Phil began studying the Bible together; Phil baptized him in the river by our house, and he has been a totally different person ever since.

I
T
H
APPENED
A
GAIN

Jep only knows about the struggles his brothers, Phil, and I went through during our hard times because we have told him. Thankfully, he did not live through them. He only knows the new Phil, the man made new in Christ. Jep often says, “I’m glad I didn’t know that old Phil. I like the one we have now!” Jep has always had a righteous, godly father who loves the Lord and loves the Scriptures.

Jep’s experiences have been totally different from his brothers’, but when he was old enough to make some important choices about his life, he went down a path very similar to the one Alan had taken years earlier. This situation, too, broke my heart, because until that time Jep had been nothing but a joy in my life. Phil and I had never had any major problems with him. Phil tells this story in his book, but it’s important to me to tell it here from my perspective.

Phil and I were better off financially by the time Jep came along than we were when the other boys were young. We wanted Jep to have a biblically based education and to have the influence of going to chapel with his friends, so when he reached high school age, we sent him to a private Christian school, even though we struggled to pay for it. We hoped sending him to that school would mean he would have a good group of Christian boys as his friends and all of them would be good influences on one another.

For a while Jep did have a great group of friends and even a couple of nice Christian girlfriends. During his senior year, he got hurt playing sports and he went through a bad breakup with a girl. As a mom, I believe he started thinking his dreams were not going to come true, and he began hanging around with a new group of
boys who were not good influences on him. I now know that when Jep went to visit one of those boys at home, some of the family was drinking and Jep drank with them.

After graduation, Jep moved into an apartment with his cousin. He did not live far from anyone in the family in terms of distance, but we did not see him as much as we had before. I knew Jep was not living as he had been raised, but I was not fully aware of all his struggles. I wrote him a lot of letters during that time, letting him know how much I loved him and how much God loved him.

T
HE
C
HOICE

My boys look out for one another. Jase is the one who told Phil and me when Alan had problems, and Willie is the one who let us know about Jep’s bad behavior. Both Willie and Jase were typical boys and through the years they did the kinds of things boys do. But they did not get involved in the same activities Alan and Jep did, and when they saw their brothers in trouble, they were quick to run to their rescue and make sure they got help.

After Willie told us what was going on with Jep, the whole family decided to confront him about it. I don’t think we called it an “intervention” back then, but that’s the term that would be used today. We all got together at our house, and when Jep came over that night, he knew something was going on.

Basically, Phil said to him, “Son, this is what was reported to me.” And he told Jep what he had heard. Jep could not deny it. His brothers were all standing nearby, and he knew they knew the truth.
They were not there to condemn him; they were there because they loved him so much.

Phil continued: “We don’t support this. You can be on your own, and you’ll be without my money and without a truck. Or you can live at home under house arrest. If you do that, you will have to live by my rules because we are not going to continue to do what we have been doing.”

Jep hung his head and started confessing everything he had been involved in. Phil was crying; I was crying; Jep’s brothers were crying. We all assured Jep that God would forgive him and we would too.

The next thing Jep said to Phil was heart wrenching: “Dad, why did it take you so long to rescue me?”

Phil spoke gently and humbly to him: “I’m sorry I waited so long. We just didn’t want to believe what we were hearing.”

After that, Jep told us he wanted house arrest. He wanted to clean up his life and live with us, according to the standards we set. When our family meeting was over that night, Alan, who was married by then, left our house and headed back to his home in West Monroe. He stopped along the way, got out of his car, went into a field, and fell to his knees weeping. He knew Jep could have died if his brothers had not told us what he was doing. He understood, in ways none of the rest of us ever could have, what it meant for us to reach out to Jep and call him to account for his actions. The Bible says God will go after one lost sheep and rejoice when that one is found, even
if there are ninety-nine others in the flock (Matthew 18:12–14). Alan understood, like no one else, what a powerful event had taken place in our home that day.

Eventually, after Jep had been home with Phil and me for a while, we allowed him to go live with a friend. We knew the friend’s parents and they agreed to monitor his behavior. We saw Jep often during that time because he soon started studying the Bible with Phil and eventually brought his friends with him. One night he showed up at our house with fifteen people, wanting Phil to share the gospel with them.

Later, talking about his wild days, Jep told me, “Mom, I might have done all that stuff, but I always felt guilty about it. Your letters really meant a lot to me.”