Happier times. Duane “Dog” Chapman took to Instagram to share a throwback photo of his family and late wife Beth Chapman on Wednesday, December 11, ahead of the holidays.

In the photo, Dog, 66, and Beth, who would have 52, posed with their children when they were still youngsters. Although the photo had no caption, one was not necessary to convey how Dog must be feeling as he will be spending the holidays without Beth for the first time.

Beth passed away on June 26 at just 51 years old. The blonde beauty had battled cancer for several years. In September 2017, she was diagnosed with stage 2 throat cancer. After undergoing surgery to remove the cancer and chemotherapy, she was cancer-free by December of that year. After being rushed to the hospital in November 2018 to remove a blockage in her throat, she was sad to learn her cancer had returned. Beth had been receiving treatment since December 2018.

Beth Chapman Wearing Blue Dressand Duane Chapman
Peter Brooker/Shutterstock

Despite her health, Beth never let anything hold her back. She still worked with Dog on his bounty hunting business and continued to travel with him in search of fugitives while filming their hit show, Dog’s Most Wanted. “She has told me repeatedly that if these are her last days on earth she wants to spend every moment with me on the hunt, living life to the fullest and enjoying the time we have left together,” Dog told the Daily Mail in March before her passing .

“Never did I think it would be this bad,” he said of dealing with the loss of his wife in an exclusive interview with In Touch back in August. “When she was with me, I would say, ‘Get in there right now cause someday maybe she won’t be here,’” he confessed about trying to mentally prepare himself to lose her. “I would pick her Kleenexes up off the floor and say, ‘someday these Kleenexes won’t be here.’ Now when I go in there and they’re not there I’m like ‘I told myself, so it’s OK. I told myself so.’ So I kind of prepared myself whether she prepared it or not to, you know, see what it could’ve been like.”

Have a tip? Send it to us! Email In Touch at contact@intouchweekly.com.