Sorry for your loss FCF.
I've hunted alone quite a bit over the years. I started losing hunting buddies soon after I got out of High School. Hunting alone is one of the prices we pay for being lucky enough to remain alive. I can't recall who said it, but on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. A couple buddies were killed in motorcycle accidents. My favorite cousin was shot and killed in a hunting accident. Several friends died rather young, way before their time from cancer and other things. A friend I just began hunting with about 5-6 years ago didn't show up for work one day last year, and was found at home, dead in a chair in his living room. He had seemed healthy as a horse. Others have moved far away, and I seldom, if ever, see them anymore. Many times, I'd have days off in the middle of the week, while my buddies were stuck at work.
I decided long ago that I wasn't going to miss out on my hunting just because I had to go alone. And looking back, I know I would have missed out on a lot of great days in the woods and fields had I chosen to wait until someone else was around to accompany me.
Even right now, in the midst of our Flintlock Deer Season, I hunt alone a lot because some of my hunting buddies don't care to hunt all day in cold snowy conditions. Many guys won't even hunt on a rainy day, and they don't know what they're missing.
So you should keep on hunting while you can... our days are numbered, and getting shorter. I'm sure many of us think we will still be active and hunting well into old age, but if we look around, the reality is likely very different. I recall posting here about seeing a very old man sitting with a rifle, in a folding lawn chair near the edge of a snow covered field, overlooking a small creek bottom on the last day of deer season several years ago. He was all alone, and covered in an old wool army blanket. I'd guess he was in his late 80's, and I'd imagine he thought it was wonderful to be out there. But it was only because someone had helped him get ready, and delivered him to that spot in a Four-wheeler. He never saw me, and I slipped back into the woods and made a big slow loop around the opposite side of that creek, hoping I might push some deer toward him.
