Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Letting Go

When I was about 11 years old my dad had promised me he would buy me a horse if had prayed the rosary for others for an entire year. Being the gullible human being I was (still am) I did just that. A year later I approached him with a slip of paper. I had written the start and finish dates of my 1 yr and had it stored away inside a statue of the Virgin Mary. He had to swallow his words.

It wasn't maybe a month later, my parents and I visited a farm out in Andover, KS where a lady bred Arabian horses. She showed us around, talked and then walked up to the fence and whistled. Seconds later the fields where full of a thunderous sounds. A herd of beautiful Arabians came running through the back woods, down a dry river bed and back up into the field before us. The youngsters jumped hay bales and the elder horses pranced right up to us in search for that evenings dinner buckets.

After a couple hours of talking and sitting around bored inside the ladies home, we headed home. Halfway back my parents informed me "we just bought you a horse." I had no idea. I was clueless as to what was being discussed the whole afternoon! I said "which one?" It was one of the 2 youngsters that had been chasing each other in endless energy. He was a 1 yr old chestnut colored Arabian gelding with a blaze down his nose and three white stockings. And he was all mine.

For the next 17+ years he was my escape from life. He helped get me out and about in public even though I was extremely shy and would have rather stayed a basement girl. I took lessons on him, taught him, traveled with him and went to horse shows with him. He was one of my two favorite hobbies.  He was my pet just like a pet dog would be to anyone else. The closeness is still there and it's equally heartbreaking when you have to give him away.

The economy has been rough oh my family and I. We could no longer afford him so we had to sell him a couple weeks ago. I didn't want him to be sold to someone that lived outside the city or to some riding school. I was lucky, an old farmer bought him as company for his old horse and he said it was ok for me to visit. I am thankful and the thought of him buying my horse was comforting.












Blaze at his new home. Miss you already.

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