Senior English
THe Hardest GoodbyeIn memory of Boot Scootin’ Color (Scooter), April 29th, 1995 - September 25th, 2017
“Lue, Sharon called. Something is wrong with Scooter in the pasture,” my mother choked out as she threw on clothes to run out the door with me in tow. I threw on pants and ran out the door, down the stairs to get the car. My heart was racing to the point I thought it might explode in my ribcage. The drive seemed to go on forever. Seconds felt like hours. My mother couldn’t drive fast enough to the barn. When we finally whipped into the driveway, I was ready to jump out of the moving car yet, we kept on driving. The drive took us all the way back to the farthest back pasture, almost into the woods. There he stood. He looked proud from a distance; it looked like nothing was wrong with his proud frame. The car came to a stop. I jumped out and ran to him. I felt up his body for injury. As soon as I got to his left front leg, he reared up and tried to throw his body into me. His mighty action caused me to fall backwards onto the ground to move away from his hooves. In all that comotion, I could hear a pop in his shoulder. We tried to get him to move towards the barn, but it was a losing battle; one I really didn’t was to loose. He held his leg pin-straight away from his body and hopped on his other three legs. My face flooded with tears as I dragged him with all my might to the barn. All I could think was, “Get him to the barn, that’s all you have to do. He will be fine. He has to be.” After about 200, feet he stopped and wouldn’t budge an inch. He was trembling and sheathed with his own sweat. My mother tried to get a hold of the vet, but he didn’t want to try and diagnose a horse in the dark. We had hit a dead end and went off the cliff into the body of water below. I was drowning in my own fear and tears. I attempted to drag him, all the while, I kept whispering, “Scooter stay alive! You are the only good thing in the cluster-fuck I call my life!”. My Mother always says, “Horses want to die; cows want to live.” I needed him. He made me who I am. He was the one who made me work my ass off to have my goals. Sadly, the vet wasn’t coming to diagnose, and I couldn’t stay with him. I kissed him on the nose, said good night and made myself get in the car, before the waterworks came back, before I was pleading to stay. I knew I had to go. That night I barely slept. The fears ate at my brain like termites to wood. I was up at 4:30 and racing to see him. It didn’t matter if the sun wasn’t up. I needed to assure myself that he was fine. That it was all a short term. When I got there I couldn’t find him. I walked the entire pasture and didn’t find him. My shoes soaked with morning dew, I searched every corner of the pasture. It was like he vanished into thin air. As I walked, the other horses followed me, but they were acting weird. They weren’t as friendly and nickering at me like they always did. They followed me silently. I just kept reassuring myself that he just broke out and was somewhere. I headed back to my truck and headed to school. I cried on the way there and thought of all the possibilities of why I couldn’t find him. The morning passed in a blur till I got the call to come home. I thought it was the vet telling me he was going to be fine, but that wasn’t the case. “Lue, he’s gone,” my mother choked out through the tears flooding her eyes. The tears slowly ran down her face. In that exact moment all the times he angered me didn’t matter. Death is a funny thing. One minute they can be the worst being ever, the next they are the best being that graced this earth. Flashbacks flooded my mind. I saw the thousands of times in the last four years I walked out to grab him from the pasture with my pockets filled with treats. I saw the thousands of times I brushed him and gave him treats before tacking up and getting to work. I saw the shows we did and the hard work I put into him to make myself a better rider. All the special moments I had with him, only memories. That is what it came down to: memories. The drive again was so exaggerated it made my skin agitated. It felt like a lifetime from Stockbridge to Kennedy Road. All I could think of was all the plans I made. I planned on taking him to Cowboy Christmas. I planned on having him through college. I planned on building my barn and having him die there, but he had other plans. My mom did always say “People make plans and God just laughs.” Even though I’m not the biggest believe of a higher power, I do believe the truth to that. I look down at his body. His body lay under the only tree turned orange in the pasture. He looked peaceful. He didn’t die in pain. I didn’t touch him until my knees buckled and caused me to fall to the ground. I just lost my best friend, my teammate, my hobby, and one of my favorite horses. If only I’d known that he would be my hardest goodbye. Goodbye Old Man, see you another time.
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May 2018
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