{ Destiny’s Charisma }
8 Years Old
Apendix Quater Horse
This is what I wrote for my senior essay it’s not quite
in the story telling format but I think the meaning is still felt here.
If you have a horse please PLEASE spend everyday being thankful
for him or her. Pray at night and tell God how much you love
your horse and how happy you are that he’s there for you.
I know I did and it helps.
I was first in my division we were supposed to go to Harrisburg for the
Hunter Finals my big dream for us. My horse collided a lot but he
always got better in a few days except this last time.
The worst of the next morning was when I for a split second,
let myself believe that I might have been a bad dream.
Then I looked down at the clothes I had worn riding the day before
still on my dirty body and I knew the apocalypse of my life had come.
Life goes on and so does the hurt both will eventually subside the trick is
openly accepting both. Dream as if you will live forever and live as
if you will die today.
~Christine Blackburne~
Picture your typical family on Christmas morning.
Mother and father sit close with camera in hand glowing and
growing warmer with every excited squeal from the small children
tearing the colorful wrappings from their presents.
The floor is covered with maimed and discarded packages; the tree,
which was an ominous power in the room is now dwarfed by the
permeating love from the gay family.
This happy group sits down to a big breakfast of hearty eggs
crispy bacon and juicy sausage minus one member.
The eldest girl waits with heavy heart looking out the back window wishing
praying desperately hoping there was one present her mother and father forgot.
Still she waits even after her parents call her in for their holiday meal.
With one more grave search of the horizon the little girl retreats
to the adjacent kitchen defeated. I was that little girl and every year I
would stare out the window intensely looking to find the one thing that
my little heart had always ravenously longed for: a horse.
Though I was grateful for the gifts that I was given nothing could fill the
hole in my heart that I had designated for a horse.
Then one day after I had been on a family trip I came home to my very
own handsome Appendix Quarter Horse Gelding.
I worked my heart out for the next two and a half years with that horse.
My grades went up I gained a much more optimistic outlook on life
and the very things fairy tales are made out of I found in great
abundance in my life. Yet as all fairy tales come to an end,
so did mine. At age 8 after rising from a hundred pound underweight
animal who possessed little muscle and even less of a tail to a top
show horse who was finally reaching the zenith of both our experiences,
my horse died a sudden and unequivocally tragic death.
Needless to say I was more than crushed when the surgeon came
into the antiseptic waiting room and announced that his
condition “was inoperable.” My horse’s colon had migrated and cut off
the circulation to his large intestine killing that part of him hours ago.
It was as though he had come to tell me that I must stop breathing
yet continue on living the idea was UN-thought of.
I find it much less hard to recollect what exactly the progression of how
he was taken to the clinic and how my horse died that morning
than to begin to picture only a simple second of the countless hours
I spent with him. Riding in the first snowfall the way he would nicker for me
knowing exactly how my feet feel as I walked into the barn or how I
helped hold his unconditionally trusting head up even as bile from his
debilitatingly agonizing stomach sputtered from a tube in his nose; these thoughts
will stay with me for eternity. The best scenario I have been able to come
up with is that of being on a football team and having the entire team die.
You could get a new team but they’re not the same guys that you have
been practicing together with for years the same guys you always hang
out with the guys you have grown to love.
They won’t play the same way and they have nothing to do with
the hard work blood and sweat you put into making your team what
they had risen to. They aren’t what used to give you purpose.
This agony does not breed regret; though I hurt more deeply than I
could have ever fathomed I have also felt love and devotion with
even greater depth. My horse and I needed each other; and
even though he may not need me anymore I still feel as
though I need him.
With these crippling memories of lamentation also comes the realization
of what wonderful fulfilling lives we led together.
For five hours a day six days a week I was at the stable taking care
of my beloved best friend as he was taking care of me.
More than a pet we worked for a common goal and learned together
bonds that still remains un-broken today.
Towards the end of his life we were competing against horses that
were purchased at five times his original price and winning.
My horse was always the shiniest my tack always the cleanest and
my riding time always the longest. I have become known for the
extended period of time I spent and continue to spend at the barn.
Other than my horse and myself no one believed we would amount to
anything in the beginning and for good reason.
I was an un-muscled un-disciplined rider and he was a nearly a
mirror image in talent. Yet we had two things that most people in this
world lack determination and trust.
I would ride for over an hour with out stirrups and go home to nearly
cry myself to sleep in pain (cowboys didn’t walk that way because they
thought it was cool).
He would jump anything I put in front of him no matter the height or angle.
We had a mutual unconditional trust for one another.
Together we rose to become a very successful team and exceed
anyone’s expectations. My horse needed me for all the attention and
unconditional love I offered him and I needed him for all the attention
and unconditional love he offered me.
Even with swelling tears in my eyes I smile when I let myself remember
him galloping with pounding hoofs alongside his friends across the
grassy field stretching across a fiery backdrop of a late autumn sunset
or watching the dew evaporate as we would ride together at sunrise when
I didn’t have enough time after work or even the way he smelled
like laundry detergent where my saddle pad was because I made sure I
only used a clean new one when ever I rode.
No one will ever be able to tell me that those years were put to waste
by his death. He may have died young but I believe that no one
else would have been able to fill his and my own heart as greatly with
love in a thousand years.
I have learned a wealth not only pertaining to riding and horses.
I have gained knowledge about responsibility greater independence
and most importantly the powers of unconditional love.
A month has passed and I continue to feel guilty when I ride other horses
knowing mine would have been jealous (and maybe still is)
and not a night has passed when I haven’t cried myself to sleep.
As for the hole in my heart I had reserved for my own horse;
it is brimming with love even at this sorrowful time.
Love is willingly surrendering one’s self to another.
Embracing both the wonders and woes that coincide with this openness
is the only remedy for a broken heart. I know the pain of seeing three
horses in the field when I know there should be a fourth will never fully
leave but with time it will give way to happy memories rather than
sharp tormenting pain.
Maybe next Christmas I will sit and stare out my back window smiling
and remembering knowing somewhere my horse is looking out his
back window too at me smiling and remembering.
I love you soooo much Burp one day I know I will see you again,
you are a very VERY good boy and
I miss you with all my heart
Love always and forever
“Mom”
A little story to think about . . .
FOR ALL THE GOOD CRITTERS ———-
And the people who love them…
A man was riding his horse down a road his dog padding
along by their side.
The man was enjoying the scenery when it suddenly occurred to
him that he was dead. He remembered dying and that his horse and dog
had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.
After a while they came to a high white stone wall along one side of the road.
It looked like fine marble. It was broken at the top of a long hill by a tall
arch that glowed in the sunlight. When he was standing before it he saw a
magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother of pearl and the
street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He nudged the horse
toward the gate and as he got closer he saw a man at a desk to one side.
When he was close enough he called out “Excuse me where are we?”
“This is heaven sir,” the man answered.
“Wow! Would you happen to have some water?” the man asked.
“Of course sir. Come right in and I’ll have some ice water brought right up.”
The man gestured and the gate began to open.
“Can my friends,” gesturing downward towards his horse and dog
“come in too?” the traveler asked.
“I’m sorry sir but we don’t accept animals.”
The man thought a moment and then turned his horse back toward
the road and continued the way he had been going.
After another long walk and at the top of another long hill he
came to a dirt road that led through a farm gate that looked as if it
had never been closed.
There was no fence. As he approached the gate he saw a man inside
leaning against a tree and reading a book.
“Excuse me!” he called to the reader. “Do you have any water?”
“Yeah sure there’s a pump over there” The man pointed to a place
that couldn’t be seen from outside the gate.
“Come on in.”
“How about my friends here?” the traveler asked.
“There should be a bowl and a bucket by the pump.”
They went through the gate and sure enough there was an
old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl and a bucket beside it.
The traveler filled the bowl and took a long drink himself then gave
some to the dog while he filled the bucket for his horse.
When they all were satisfied he led his horse back toward the man
who was standing by the tree waiting for them the dog following
faithfully behind.
“What do you call this place?” the traveler asked.
“This is heaven,” was the answer.
“Well that’s confusing,” the traveler said. “The man down the road said
that was heaven too.”
“Oh you mean the place with the Gold Street and pearly gates?
Nope. That’s hell.”
“Doesn’t it make you mad for them to use your name like that?”
“No. I can see how you might think so but we’re just happy that they
screen out the folks who’ll leave their best friends behind”.
| Burp |