When we wish for horses
I woke up to a few missed calls from my sister, which started at 3:08 am. That’s never a good sign.
My first thought was that my Mom was dying or dead. I know that’s dark but she hasn’t been well and it’s been on my mind. How fragile we all are. How things are fine one day and then the next - they’re just not.
I finally got a hold of Christa before she’d had coffee, before breakfast, she sounded like she’d just opened her eyes. Her voice groggy and she said no, so strange, she was sorry she hadn’t called me on purpose. I told her not to worry and go get some coffee and we’d talk later.
I didn’t know what she was about to find when she walked downstairs.
My sister lives on a farm in western Washington a little outside of Olympia. They have Highland and Jersey cows, sheep, chickens, sometimes pigs and horses.
The horses have always been because of my niece. She’s loved them ever since she saw her very first one. It’s like that for some people. They see a horse and the magic gets inside them quickly, goes way down deep, and lights up a fire.
I was like that too. When I was a kid. I dreamed horse dreams every second of every day. I couldn’t believe they existed on the same planet as I did. They made me happy to be alive when being alive was hard.
Christa had walked out to the barn the night before, after getting back from seeing a Christmas play in town. When you live on a farm you often find yourself in the barn before going to bed - just checking on all the creatures. The cow Peaches had been on her mind all day, she seemed off, but she would later tell me the cow was fine. That she had kissed the Thoroughbred mare Fiora on the nose and said goodnight. All was well.
If you’ve never been lucky enough to look into a horse's eyes and say goodnight - you’d be surprised at how dark they are. And there are these tiny glowing bubbles that look a bit like the kind you might see inside blown glass. They orbit around the long black horizontal pupil. When I was a kid growing up I used to stare into my horse’s eyes for a long time. Noticing all the orbs and glowing bits. To me, it seemed like there might be a tiny magical doorway hidden in there. It felt like I was looking into something vast. Like maybe it was pretending to be an eye but it was secretly a galaxy. Perhaps I could become small, like a wisp of smoke, and float into it and I’d find myself in another world. A land somewhere with green meadows and sunny skies, and fast horses galloping all over the place. Free and wild. And they would all let me ride them and I’d be safe. That’s what a horse's eyes do to you when you’re ten years old. They make you feel safe.
I got my first horse when I was 10 years old. Her name (cringy, get ready for it) was Princess. But as much as I hated her name, it was hers, so I kept it. She was a rescue, a swayback paint pony that my dad had gotten for $200 bucks off a lady who lived nearby. But to me. To me she was everything. Every day I looked into her dark brown soft eyes, I blew my breath into her nose and breathed with her, and spent every second I could with her. And every day she saved me. Horses can do that; they can rescue you every day.
Instead of a call, I got a text a few hours from my sister. Their mare Fiora had been found lying flat down in the mud. The vet had been called and they were all desperately trying to coax her to get up. They suspected colic but weren’t sure what was happening. If it’s colic it’s important they don’t stay down. You have to get them on their feet. She was asking for prayers. I sent them.
After what seemed like forever, they were finally able to get her up and the vet arrived. The vet felt that they should just put her down, he felt that she was done. He couldn’t hear any intestinal sounds which was a very bad sign.
The thing is Fiora was fine, more than fine, just the night before. My sister had tucked her into the barn and nothing was amiss. This couldn’t be happening.
When things change that quickly it shocks you. My sister heard the vet’s words but I think she probably saw something in Fiora’s eyes because she told the vet she was not done. The horse was still fighting and so they were not going to quit. She got up from the mud, didn’t she? She wasn’t done or she would have stayed down. They asked for pain meds and asked for time. They would walk her. Just keep her moving slowly, keep her from lying down again. The vet agreed, he left, and he would return and check in three times over the course of the day.
And so they started walking, slowly talking to her, and leading her around and around the arena. They took shifts. They did this all day. It started to rain - lightly at first and then harder. The mare’s breath was getting labored.
They took her into the barn to get dry in her stall for a bit and the gelding Fabio who usually cannot be found more than a few feet from her, who was obsessed with her since the minute she arrived on the farm, refused to come near her. I think maybe he was already heartbroken. My sister shared later that the barn cat jumped onto Fiora’s back, something it had never done and most cats wouldn’t dare to do. The sheep and the cows seemed still and unnerved. They knew something was very wrong, they are so wise, my sister would tell me later.
They kept trying; all day they were with her. They walked her (over 40,000 steps in all my sister would later mutter) and whispered to her and prayed over her until she laid down in the arena her head held in my niece’s lap. She held her as she died, which took three hours.
Death is never quick my sister told me when we talked later in the night. She said they just stayed with her as her breath got shorter and shorter. They gave her all the pain meds they had, looked into her eyes, told her it was going to be okay and just stayed.
When a horse dies you’re not okay, you vomit, you sob, you break. I don’t think our bodies can hold that kind of sadness. The kind that’s the size of a horse.
A horse is big. I know you know this. But horses really are larger than life. When they die, it feels like something that should have been impossible has happened. It rattles you way down in your dreaming child place. The place that believes they are from another planet just pretending to be horses but are really something far greater.
They covered Fiore’s body in blankets. Tucked her into that final sleep for the night. And went inside to grieve. They would bury her the next morning. You need an excavator to do it. Which also seems wrong. Something so big and cold moving something so special. It doesn’t seem that it should be allowed to touch that kind of softness.
As soon as my eyes opened this morning I envisioned my sister and my niece waking up and looking out on the pasture. The largeness of Fiora’s body covered in blankets. I saw her beautiful velvet horse nose that my sister had kissed the night before, and her closed eyes on the ground - in the mud, and I wished it was spring and there were flowers for her to lay on.
The things we wish for when we wish for horses.
It made me remember my own horse wishes.
I was 12 years old when my mother had escaped her abusive marriage. We were living in the attic level of a woman’s house temporarily. I had just started public school, fifth grade, after being homeschooled for five years. We had to leave Princess behind with my father.
She was getting old by the way; losing her hearing and sight. She stood with her back hoof cocked in the sun most days dozing and I would just go out - kiss her big warm cheek and stare into her eye and tell her all my secrets. Sometimes I would sit directly under her and scratch her belly as her lower lip hung loose and relaxed. This made me feel trusted and important. She made me feel safe when everything around me was dangerous. And I would tell her “I know you can talk, and I promise I won’t tell anyone ever if you decide to talk to me. She was my best friend.
I came home from school one day and my mom asked me to sit next to her and she had something to tell me. Princess is dead, she whispered. She told me that my Dad had left the horse out in the yard and gone to work and she had wandered onto the road and been hit by a car.
The sound that came out of me would come back to me years later the first time I gave birth. It came from the same place. A deep animal moan. A howl. Which became a scream that I sent into my pillow and the bed. In my heart, I heard my mother speaking, but she seemed far away as I put together the details. I saw my friend lying in the ditch dying slowly alone without me, without me to whisper to her that I loved her. I curled up in a ball and just screamed. I had no words. Just anger and sorrow.
I didn’t see it coming. That kind of sadness.
Later I would talk to her instead of God, for many nights before I went to bed. I would always end my prayers to her with I’m sorry, and thank you.
It’s the things we don’t see coming that never leave us. I still remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember the smell of the blanket that I bit into as I raged into the bed trying to muffle the sound that seemed too loud to come from such a young girl.
My sister told me later she had called me in the night, she had called me twice and called my other niece but had no memory of it. That the phone had been in her bed. And I wondered if somehow she knew while she was sleeping. That she needed to get up, to wake up and call someone. That Fiora was down in the mud out there. Like a cat jumping up to touch something dying and then leaping off wondering what it was doing.
Later my sister would say through her grief, This is a stupid life, such a stupid life - she recalled standing there with the dying horse and it had also just happened to be the day the butcher was set to arrive for the beef cow …and she was just done. She was done with all the death and the heartbreak that happens on a farm. Done with trying to keep things alive and failing.
I started thinking about how we get wrapped up in what we think our days will be. I know I do. But we don’t know what we’re going to wake up to find or what the day will ask of us. And so when the breaking comes we try and hold it, like a horse that isn’t done fighting, we try to expand even though it hurts and walk with it even when we’re cracking open.
That’s all we can do when we don’t see it coming.
The thing is I’ve been crying all morning for my niece and for my horse. The one I lost so many years ago. Not because she’s gone but because she was here and I got to love her and it was amazing. I wish she’d died differently. I wish that for my niece too.
But I’m glad that horse got to be held through it with love. I’m glad my sister and my niece are people who fight for the lives of the creatures they share space with. That they believe in dignity and hope and that they grieve when it is over.
Anytime we can hold and fight for what we love, when we can get up from the muck and the mud, and walk by its side - that’s a good life. Even when it feels stupid. Even when it breaks your heart.
The heartbreak is palpable. And the soul connection with horses. Such a moving piece!
Beautifully written, what an emotional journey for you, your sister and her family.