My Incredible Journey - Part 1

Like I said earlier in the week, April 16 (next Friday) marks the third anniversary of the death of a very special friend of mine. Because of that, I've decided to spread a series of posts throughout this week in his honor. Writing about this subject is something that has been historically hard for me to do, but the story is one that I would love to share with all of you.

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I began horseback riding in 2000. After toying with the idea for quite some time, we finally went to a riding stable to inquire in August of that year. About a month later, I was finally sitting six feet in the air, on top of the most gentle, dead-broke school horse in the barn, a mare named Lady.

For that year, I continued riding that horse, learning some of the basics of horse care along the way. However, one afternoon in June 2001, my mother made a call for me to have another riding lesson, and was met with the words "Lady is sick."

I didn't know the gravity of her illness then (botulism), nor could my ten-year-old mind really comprehend that she was going to die. Sure enough, that's what happened, and on the morning on July 4, she was euthanized.

I remember writing in my journal that I didn't think I could ever love a horse again. I was devastated; I am, characteristically, fiercely loyal to those who are close to me, so the fact that I was going to start having to ride a different horse was something I took as a blow.

I did not return to the stable until my birthday - July 23. A friend of mine had to pick something or someone up, and I was invited along for the ride.

I can still remember it like it was yesterday - walking around that barn, looking back at all the big, brown eyes that were staring at me, but feeling a certain emptiness. Lady was not there. In my horse experiences up until that point, she was all I had known, and it was hard to swallow.

Then, as if by magic, I took a turn in to a rather secluded area of the barn that housed but three horses. I could see one horse peering out over the stall guard (ropes, basically, that keep them inside the stall without having to use a door), his face with a white blaze down the front that reminded me of Lady's. I knew it couldn't be her, but I went over to him, anyway.

Taco, circa 1994

I went over to him, talked to him, and petted him. His name was Taco; he was the thirty-five year old boarder horse who every one knew, but no one really bothered with. I stood there for a long while with him, until the party I had come to the barn with discovered me and told me it was time to leave.

I rode the whole way home in the car thinking about him. Little did I know that those first few moments on my eleventh birthday would be the start of something that I couldn't have imagined even in my wildest dreams.

stay tuned for Part 2...