07/24/2024
I want to break a long silence with a dedication to a beloved horse. Actually, three. This month has seen three 6-month anniversaries of herd members’ passings. Actually, there was a 4th death for me, too, though it wasn’t a horse.
I dedicate this to the love of my life, a soul mate horse and amazing, life-enhancing friend, Fajah. Fajah passed away January 22nd.
Before that, on January 5th, Shai passed away. His long-dormant EPM had returned. He was almost 20. His passing was blessed by Lindsay Kent, who came out just an hour before the vet arrived to put him down after an all-night fight to get up in single digit cold.
Twelve days later, joyful, funny, fun Spangles passed away in the night, also in single digit weather, but in his case, during a snowstorm that lay two feet of snow over his body by morning. He’d had an undiagnosed illness that, when I got him, manifested as allergies, though I suspect there was an underlying issue. Spangles was months away from his 22nd birthday. That morning was January 17th.
I knew Fajah was next. For over a year I’d been treating each of these horses, each with their own illness, but each seeming to be on the same trajectory of ups and downs. All three were looking healthy going in to winter. Then with the first really cold weeks, all three declined suddenly.
I loved them all. But if you knew me, you’d know I’ve been lucky enough to have two soul mate, amazing horses. Horses I could ride without tack, who I have so many once-in-a-lifetime stories with, that for 6 months I haven’t been able to write or think of any one. Legend, my handsome bay soul mate, passed away the summer of 2015. Fajah was his best friend, with whom he was inseparable unless he was with me.
This past January 22nd, it was Fajah’s time. She was months away from her 26th birthday.
The day after her body was removed from her pasture, colleagues at Powder Mountain mocked me for my love of a horse, and for my grief. My next shift, 2 days later, I was fired for, not my cussing outburst at them that may have deserved censure (I’d asked for the day off, but had been told that couldn’t take it off), but for something that didn’t happen.
I was fired in a bizarre way that had every unprofessional behavior one could imagine. From a volunteer job I loved, at a place I lived, in a program that now no longer exists. With it went my season pass, and my way to sojourn with nature I’d imagined would get me through such a sad winter.
So for me, that bizarre bullying cruelty was a fourth death. It was the only unnatural, unfair one. I was in a gentle womblike space, reeling, but held. Adrenaline-tinged bitterness of being wronged was unwelcome, and it took months to recover the space in which I could process the intense, intensely beautiful, intensely vulnerable experience of holding space for each of these amazing beings, and having to let go. Three times in 2 1/2 weeks. And be only had to do this 2 other times total in a lifetime of living with horses.
So. I hope you will help. I hope you will tell your stories in the comment section below. If you knew any of these amazing horses, tell a story about them. If you’ve been through the incredibly grueling but also precious experience of ushering a mythic being, an amazing horse, out of this plane of existence, I hope you will share some aspect of that.
Most of all, I want to thank them. Thank you, Shai, for your stubborn form of love, and for your amazing story, for the feeling of royalty you bestowed on participants and the people you loved.
Thank you, Spangles, for being the combination of so much—your dam from Kehilan Arabians where I trained through my college years, to my dream bloodlines in your sire, Bayfire Ali, of Martha White’s amazing Arabian breeding program. For being so much fun to ride. For not needing training, really, and after 3 arena rides, being ready to just learn on trail, and do it all on your first trail ride. For all the fun liberty work and magic you brought to clients and friends and especially to me, as a one person kind of horse. Thank you for picking up the baton when Legend passed and taking such good care of both me and Fajah.
And. I have to say it. Thank you, Fajah. Thank you for being the world. Everything good, so much magic, so many miracles, so much togetherness. You knew me like no human or horse ever has, except Legend, of course. We were together for almost 22 years. Your entering my life was a miracle, and your leaving was…well. You’ll be here till I join you. Thank you for never leaving. As Wesley of the Princess Bride says, “Death cannot stop true love.” Thank you for your presence every moment, even now. Always.
