A Letter to You

It has been two years to the day since I watched your body collapse on the concrete.  The back that carried me through the awkward haze of adolescence, insecurity, depression, confusion.  Who taught me patience, understanding, and what it means to love beyond words.  My confidence when I had none.  My confidante, my best friend, a shoulder to melt in to.  You were my teammate.  But I would give up all the accolades, the glory, the money won, every single fence we ever jumped together if only I could hear you softly whicker to me as I walk from the house to the barn.  If only I could feel your unreasonably soft nose tickle the back of my neck.  To feel your eyes looking in on my soul.  To have you put your head on my shoulder and follow me wherever I went.

Now when I go back and visit the farm, I feel only emptiness, and I see only ghosts.  I look to your paddock and can only picture the first time I ever saw you.  How wild you were.  My parents wanted to get rid of you, they thought you would be dangerous.  But I saw me.  I saw another living being that was as lost as me, as wild, as defiant.  You were always my girl.

There was some sort of inextricable link between us from the first day I saw you bucking through the fog and the freezing rain.  We never looked back.  We survived high school together, you being the only thing in my life that seemed to make any semblance of sense.  And then I graduated, and decided to quit riding.  I left the farm, I moved to the city.  And I was more than alone.  I missed you, but I was too stubborn to come home.  I was too brokenhearted over my own decisions that I didn’t come and visit you as often as I should have. 

I never thought we wouldn’t have the better part of forever.  But that’s the thing about death, everybody knows of its inescapability yet we don’t live as though we can be separated from one another in the same amount of time it takes to lift your legs out of bed in the morning.  I don’t know if we even should live in fear of one another’s mortality. 

All I know is that I would give anything to have spent one final day with you.  To go on one last ride.  To feel the inexplicable calm and understanding between us as we walked the cow trails behind the hay field.  To rub your forehead.  To inhale you, to hear your contented sighs, and quietly eat your hay. 

I used to picture my children learning the same respect from you for life that you taught me.  I used to picture them laughing on your back.  Me by your head, admiring the patience in your eyes.  They would have been surrounded by the white hairs of wisdom, and a full life.

We don’t always get what we want.  I can honestly say that although it has been a full two years, I don’t feel much different than I did the day you died.  I still feel the wrenching loss, the unfairness of it all.  I feel the same guilt for not being able to save you.  It was so hard to let you go, your soul was so intact but your body was so broken. 

And for all the times you saved me, there was nothing I could do for you except watch you die.  And the worst part, was the look in your eyes pleading with me to fix it.  And I couldn’t explain to you what was about to happen. I was entirely powerless.  Even though, rationally, I know there was nothing I could have done I still feel like I betrayed you.  I feel a relentless, aching guilt. 

Two years later, I wish I could say I understand why you’re gone, I wish I could be at some sort of peace with it all.  But I’m not there yet, and maybe I won’t ever be.  All i know is that I love you, and I will treasure your heart in mine always. 

You were so much more than just a horse.  You were a sister, a mother, a teacher, a friend, and you very well may have saved my life.  I feel eternal gratitude for the time I got to spend with such a remarkable living creature.  For your grace, your understanding, your patience, and your fighting spirit. 

You will live on in the lessons you taught me.  As long as I’m still alive, there will be a piece of you in this world, and I will always try to bestow the same wisdom, and kindness you granted me on every person I come in to contact with.  My love for you is greater than this world I live in. 

Sleep, pretty darling
do not cry
and I will sing a lullaby.