Good Times and Bad Times

There are bad times and then there are the terrible, horrible, awful, no-good times.  Not much else can be said for the times of departure of a beloved.  Thursday May 30 began as just another normal day but ended in unexpected grief.

Mack's Reward, an OTTB, was the horse I'd been longing for, for fifty plus years.  Since a child, I'd wanted a horse and finally after establishing a career and moving from places as far-flung as the pacific islands, at the age of fifty-six I finally felt settled enough to bring into my life the horse I'd always wanted. 

After a three month search, we found each other and Mac came home to fill my life.  For nine short years he was an integral  part of the family.  He taught me to ride and everything I know about horses.  From him I learned the deep meaning of interspecies relationship.  

When I entered the barn that evening for regular feeding, I could see before even entering that this was not going to be just another routine feeding.  A portion of Mac’s stall wall was knocked down, a sight I’d never seen and a feat requiring enormous force. 

Mac was lying down in the midst of disheveled stall mats and bedding with eyes full of agony.  As I entered the barn he pulled himself up on very shaky and unstable legs and

supported himself by leaning his hind-end against the back wall, looking back at me in utter despair.  With an enormous knot arising in the belly I was flooded with rage, despair, fear, and helplessness. 

Thus began an ordeal that ended five days later at the veterinary hospital at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.  After a three-hour transport, a six hour surgical proceeded to release the intestinal blockage, and several days of post-op recovery without improvement, the inevitable had to be accepted.

I embraced his neck, held him close and wept.  What else can one do at such times?

The vets unhooked the IVs; I dried my eyes, haltered Mac, and took him outside for our last walk.  He was sedated and not in terrible pain.  As we walked outside after his five days of confinement, he lifted his beautiful proud head absorbing the sunshine and taking in everything into view as if the world could not be a more wonderful place.

  

Several passers-by, obviously horse peoples themselves and with no ideas as to what was coming, stopped to admire and comment on his exceptional beauty and magnificence.

I can’t count the times I’d heard similar comments.  Whoever came in contact with Mac knew they were in the presence of an unusual horse. 

Even after the five day ordeal, he still looked like the perfect picture of health and with every ounce in my body I wished that he were. 

A mother and her infant observed from a short distance.

The mother asked, “Can we come closer?”

I shook my head and said, “Yes.”

The infant transfixed, observed in amazed fascination.

His mother said,  “This is the first horse he has ever seen.”

I  thought to myself, “The circle of life.”

I wanted the moment to last forever.

We went back into the clinic.  I gave Mac water, which he drank with relish.  The vets came and with my heart breaking in agony I led him to the room where we were going to say goodbye. 

Within seconds after the injection he was down. There wasn't a hint of shock in his now

still eyes.  

I dropped to my knees and buried my face in his silky-soft, warm, and powerful neck.  The river of tears burst forth as I wept uncontrollably.  Out of respect and with tears in their eyes the vets and techs quietly departed the room to leave us together. 

I transported his body back home where he rests in peace in the pasture he shared with his long time pasture mate.