It is dark early now. The sky is often the color of gun powder and lead. Temperature dropping. For the last several years this has been about the time of the year that I started to sink.
But...so far so good. A bad wound does not remain so. Eventually it becomes a scar. Scar tissue might not be pretty but it is tough. Maybe my scar is starting to toughen up.
I knew a man whose adult daughter died. He said that there was something special about the tenth year after she died for him. It was only then that he could have any pleasant memories of her. Until then every thought of her brought nothing but intense pain.
It has not been ten years, but last week for the first time I told something funny about Lido without having to force a smile. The smile came on its own.
I can now recognize how significant the support that our family received that day was. I can now think about it clearly enough to recognize the extraordinary efforts of my friends and riders.
I called Beth and told her that I had just gotten a call from my brother that Lido was taking his gun out of the truck while he was hunting with his best friend and the gun went off and Lido was gone. I hung up the phone and called Rebecca. I told her to let everyone know and to tell them to assemble at my house and that I wanted everyone to do whatever crying they were going to do before I got home. I called JK. She was home from work sick that day. She lived abut an hour and a half away. I would be home before she arrived.
Jordan was young, younger than Lido. No one ever knows what to say or do in such situations, especially a kid. She came over and set beside me on the sofa. I did not realize that I was hugging her so hard until I noticed a look of pain on her face.
She did not complain.
Terry, Lisa, everyone was there. Eric went outside to talk to the tv people to let them know that we would not have anything to say. As the day went on my body felt perfectly drained. Rebecca suggested that she and JK take me to the horse lot.
We went in JK's car. Nothing was said on the way. When we got there they said nothing. JK got out and walked in one direction, Rebecca went the other way. I was tired and confused and had no understanding what was going on. Could not follow why they would bring me here and then just walk off.
JK had walked over toward the rope halters. Rebecca had picked up a piece of hay string and headed out into pasture number 3. She caught Ghost Dance, brought her out and JK put a rope halter on her. Rebecca handed me the end of the rope and simply said, "Here is Ghost Dance for you."
Both of the young women walked off. I do not know which direction they went, but they left me there with Ghost Dance. I unloaded everything that I carried all day on Ghost Dance. She rubbed her neck vigorously on my shoulder. If I moved away at all she pushed back into me. She just stood there with there head down, keeping her body in contact with mine until everything was drained out of me.
That is when Rebecca and JK came back over and took me home.
One never knows what to say or what is the right thing to do in such situations but Rebecca and JK figured it out that day.
They took me where I needed to go.
I learned yesterday that the Horse of the America's Lido Fund helped pay for transportation to help another Colonial Spanish horse. He's been dead now for quite a while and he is still helping take care of the horses.
That's Lido on Sand Creek, a young mustang, at the first training clinic he and I ever did. (Rebecca's mother turned this picture into something beautiful for me that still sits on my desk at work along with two of Lido's awards from the Special Olympics)
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