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The Hardest Goodbye
In 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 ($5 dollar Senctence). 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. 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 move away from me. As he did that I could hear a pop in his shoulder (AWUBIS). We tried to get him to move towards the barn, but it was a struggle. He held his leg pin straight away from his body and hopped on his other three legs. I cried as I dragged him to the barn. After about 100 feet he stopped and wouldn’t budge. He was shaking and sweating. My mother tried to get a hold of the vet, but he didn’t want to try and diagnose a horse in the dark (FANBOYS). We had hit a dead end. I pulled and kept saying “Scooter stay alive through the night!” My Mother always said “that horses want to die, cows want to live.” She wouldn’t let me stay the night. I kissed him on the nose, said good night and made myself get in the car. That night I barely slept. I was up at 4:30 to take care of another lady’s horses, then headed to my barn to check on Scooter. 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 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 I walked out to grab him from the pasture with my pockets filled with treats in the last four years. 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 turned tree 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 (Climax). If only I’d known that he would be my hardest goodbye. Goodbye Old Man, see you another time.
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The Hardest Goodbye
In memory of Boot Scootin’ Color (Scooter) April 29th, 1995 - September 25th, 2017 Did the girl know it was her last night with her red gelding? Did she know it was her last time to see the sparkle in his eye? Did she know that he taught her everything he was supposed to? (Retorical Questions) I watched her walk away with tear stains down her face. She left him under the never ending starry sky in the place he was happy. I would watch over him for her. I owed her that. I walked and sat down about 10 feet away from him my tail twitching and ready to pounce. I could tell whatever they gave him helped him, but the sparkle from his eyes was gone (FANBOYS). The only sparkle was the twinkling lights in the black sky above us. I knew he was leaving this earth. It was his time. I would respect that and leave him in peace. I walked away hearing the sound of hustling mice in the dried grass in the woods. I don’t know how long passed, but sunrise came and so did the sound of an engine. The girl jumped out of the red truck and quickly ducked under the fence. She yelled for the gelding, but he didn’t come. She walked and walked, but didn’t find him. Couldn’t she smell him? I could smell him. I licked my paw. She walked the entire grassland, but didn’t find him. She didn’t check the one place he was laid to rest. She yelled and sobbed, but soon left. I meowed for her to come back, but it was too late. Her tail lights were too far away by the time I got out of the underbrush. She later came back in a different vehicle with two other people. She walked to the only changed tree in the entire grass. The red gelding lay peacefully there. His coat complemented the changed leaves already. His eyes open and finally not filled with pain. The girl crouched down to pet his chestnut mane. Her knees buckled under her causing her fall to the ground. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed on the gelding’s neck. The girl lost her teammate, her best friend, her first love (Climax). Of all of her goodbyes, this one would be hardest. The Sapphire Eyes
The excitement bubbled in the pit of my stomach. I was ready to see her performance on Hollywood Headliner. She sat on the palomino stallion bareback, heels down with her toes up, like all good equestrians. Her chocolate hair was down and pin straight, held down with a colorful headband; her horse had a bright red flower in the middle of his brow-band (across his forehead). The colorful headbands went with the bellbottoms that had a colorful strip of fabric down the side. Her flowing peace-sign shirt and brown vest with leather fringe, that covered her butt and touched the horse’s back, completed the look. She had a necklace of fake flowers in colors ranging from red to purple around the stallion’s neck. Her choice of costumes was odd, given the quiet way she lives her life. Finally, it was her turn to do her pattern. From here you couldn't see her bright sapphire eyes, but for a fact I knew they’d already be locked on to the place of her first maneuver. She waved her bright neon yellow number 3980, and started her pattern. She entered the ring at a jog, crossing to the center on the diagonal, while holding the stallion’s mane in one hand, so she wouldn’t fall off. As soon as she gave a thumbs up, “American Kids” by Kenny Chesney rang out in the MSU pavilion. She smooched to get the stallion into a canter, making circles at the closer end of the arena. Suddenly, they bolted down the east side of the arena at a blinding speed, sliding the stallion on his haunches, the dust surrounding them, almost swallowing them whole. Several feet from the fence, she pivoted him at 180 degrees. Again, they exploded toward the other end of the arena. Another sliding stop had me holding my breath, watching the amazing horsewoman meld with the powerful stud. Another u-shaped roll-back had them heading back to the center of the ring. As she did these maneuvers, her hair flew behind her, the fringes flapped, and the stallion’s muscles and tail rippled in a flow of motion rolling over the ground. She did a flying lead change to the left doing big, fast circles, then small, slow circles. With every maneuver, her heels were down, head held high, every bit in the manner with which she carried herself through her profession as a police officer and in her personal life. Each maneuver was precise and accurate with speed from a gallop to a jog. She finally got to her spins: this was my favorite besides the sliding stops. The equestrian halted the stud in center, so that he could settle and catch his breath. That kindness was not lost on the stud, causing him to give even more in his performance. As he spun, it looked like his inside hind-leg was screwing itself into the ground. Again, her single-mindedness was evident, as she kept count of the number of spins while keeping her seat in the middle of a vortex. The crowd roared. The stud stopped, loped out of the spin and began switching leads every three strides at a diagonal across the ring. This maneuver looked like he skipped every three strides like a dance. The pattern reminded me of an dance pattern, because that’s what reining is: A dance covering 12 feet per stride. Reining is a pattern which involves you riding a horse at different speeds while performing key components: sliding stops, flying lead changes, spins, and rollbacks to complete the pattern correctly. It was no wonder that she had won at the higher levels of the sport: her single-minded attention to detail, the laser-focus of her life, so exemplified by those laser-like sapphire eyes, was the exacting performance of a reining pattern. |
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