I found sweet Lana lying by the gate today. She was dead. From the looks of things, she just keeled over. Ka-boom. Just. Like. That.
She wasn’t sick. Wasn’t in pain. And ever the sweet pony that she was, she didn’t put me in the heart wrenching position of having to make THAT decision.
She actually did me a favor dying like that. An old horse, a very old horse, moving on to wherever it is old horses go. Leaving the body she no longer needed right there by the gate. By the gate…so we could get her out of there easy peasy. If you ever even contemplated moving a dead horse you’d know how considerate that is.
Oh God, I’m going to miss her so.
Lana 1980-2013
Going to miss that deep throaty nicker every time she caught sight of me. Her boundless enthusiasm as she cantered up to the fence for dinner. Or just to say hi, as recently as yesterday. Her kick-ass I’m the boss mare attitude towards the others in the herd. Her catch me if you can shennigans when the the mood was upon her.
Lovin’ on Lana
I’m going to miss her, oh how I’ll miss her. But she didn’t go before she taught me the lesson I needed to learn, that it’s okay to open your heart, okay to risk it all by loving someone. Even when you know that someone isn’t going to be around forever. Even though that love will someday break your heart.
I wrote all about that here. And because of that lesson, I also know it’s okay to feel what I’m feeling now. Which is shitty.
Really, it’s okay.
Because shitty will pass. And when it does, the lesson learned will be stronger than ever. It’s okay to love. To feel deeply. To be vulnerable. And it’s okay to feel good again.
Thank you Lana, for teaching me that. Happy trails. Namaste. And while you’re galloping around up in pony heaven, say hi to Roy and Dale and Jesus for me.
I have not been here for a week. Have not written a blog post, have not thought of writing one.
But wait! Wasn’t that something I said I’d do when I redesigned the blog? Said I’d post something every day. Because, after all, I am a super-human, super-creative, super-duper-super-woman extraordinaire. Without the cape.
Capes get in the way.
Oh, whack me upside the head for being such a silly girl. For not realizing that sometimes life gets in the way of good intentions. That sometimes we need to be and do other stuff. And so I was doing. Doing doing doing DOING until my head spun a complete 360 like that kid in The Exorcist.
I was cleaning and clearing Mama’s cottage for the renter. Shlepping stuff up the hill to my place. To the dining room table for further sorting. To the kid’s rooms, the kids who no longer live here so I can use their rooms as storage for saddles and other stuff until I figure out where they need to be…those rooms.
To the thrift stores. And the dump. Buh-bye.
And all the while my head was SPINNING.
Because this week marks the second anniversary of Mama’s one-way ticket to Jesusland. The week she turned to me with such a perplexed expression on her face and asked, “Why is my body doing this to me?” And all I could say to her was “Because you’re so damn old.”
There was nothing more I could do for her except love her and tend to her with my sisters. That last morning, when she could no longer speak, I slipped some shaved chocolate between her lips. Her favorite, Green & Black 85% Dark. Her smile was pure bliss.
A few hours later she died, just a two weeks shy of her 96th birthday. She died at home. In the cottage, the cottage I’m now okay with renting.
Still, it’s been a rough week. Hard work and bittersweet memories. The cottage is clean now, the renter moved in. I still have sorting, distributing and disposing of stuff but the pressure of a deadline is past. I can breathe now. Relax a little.
This evening I went down to stand with the ponies while they had their buckets, their nightly treat of senior chow and supplements. And as they ate I stood there opening my senses to the moment. Taking it all in. The sight of the mud, of hoof print size puddles, of hay trod into the muck. The pile of hair beneath Lana, hair I pulled out by the handfuls last night in lieu of a proper brushing.
But it was the sounds of the evening that rounded things out. The sound of horses slurping. Birds high up in the trees. So many of them, different birdsong, sweet and clear. From down the lane the sound of voices. A small child. Adults speaking. Laughing. And then the music, notes from some sort of flute.
The sounds dipped and wove around each other like music. Subtly so. We’re not talking boom box here. But standing there with my all my senses…with my heart open to the moment…it was lovely.
Here’s a tiny slice of it I’d like to share. A moment in time captured with the iphone. And just so you know, that muck is mud, not pony poop. Well, mostly.
Sophie is roaming from window to window growing. Woofing softly. There’s something out there.
I was down with the ponies tonight. Went down at dusk and spent nearly half an hour with them as they ate their evening ‘bucket’. Bucket being the feed and supplements separate from the hay. Everyone gets their own specific blend of stuff, depending on their needs. I usually lock Jasmine up in the stall during this time. She gets less and tries to make up for it by stealing from the others.
She’s a pushy little ass.
Tonight I couldn’t get her near the stall. She turned up lame this evening, favoring her left front foot. Most likely another abscess. Another as in we’ve been through this before. Many times. Sigh….
Since I couldn’t convince her to come into the barn I figured I’d hang out there with them, wearing my playground monitor hat, stable edition. Dusk turned to dark as I stood out there under the pines. The moon was out, just past full. A peaceful evening interlude in the forest–
Except it was so damn NOISY!
The horses were slurping their buckets. Manners like that, you’d think they were raised in a barn.
And peepers were partying it up in the meadow. Bazillions of ’em. BAZILLIONS of froggies goin’ a courtin’. Saying, Yo Yo, babe, hey hey hey check this out in froggie speak. Amphibian lust.
And the dogs, every single dog up and down the canyon, including my own, were chatting up the puppy hotline. Barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark BARK. Which means, according to local lore, lion in the ‘hood.
But not in the immediate hood, the paddock or the meadow, because the ponies were chill.
Trust me, when there is something scary on the other side of the fence, they act like one of those horror movies where everyone’s crashing their cars and running away from the aliens. Since they were not the least bit concerned tonight, neither was I.
Well…maybe just a little.
And now I’m sitting here safe and sound, sipping a cuppa tea and dreaming about bed. Flannel sheets. My ancient, almost flat, favorite down pillow.
Sophie’s all settled in for the night. And so am I.
