My beloved horse, Ben got his angle wings last Saturday. When I sat up in the hayloft looking out over the farm at sunset last evening, the wind blew across the field where he loved to graze on the Springtime grass and bask in the sunshine. As I closed my eyes and felt the gentle wind touch my hair, my heart broke wide open.
Ben was my rescue thoroughbred, blind in one eye and gentle in nature and heart. He would let me lay down beside him as he rested in the pasture. He was my confidante, my strength, my hope. Ben was a gift who entered my life unexpectedly at a time when I was essentially falling apart within. He entered my life when I was struggling with a relationship that continually brought me to my knees and made me question who I was. I wondered at times if he was a gift from God as he gracefully began to help me heal my broken heart..
There were so many nights when I would go out to the barn just to hug him so that I could bring forth his essence. The scent of horse and the earth he walked on somehow always brought me back to myself. And there were so many mornings when I would find solace, and even joy as I fed him his grain and dropped down hay from the loft. Often, as I mucked his stall, I would sing, “Ben, the two of us need look no more, we both found what we were looking for”…(you all know that love song )….I wonder now if Ben knew that I needed to heal in mind, body, and spirit.
Ben kept my heart open even when I didn’t know who or what to trust in my life. We had a beautiful symbiotic relationship that was not only built upon love, it was also built upon trust. We knew that no matter what, we were there to support and sustain each other.
In the poem, “The Best Place to Bury a Horse”, the author beautifully states:
If you bury a horse in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call, come to you over the far, dim pastures of death. And though you ride other, living horses through life, they shall not shy at him, nor resent his coming. For he is yours and he belongs there…..The one place to bury a horse is in the heart of his master.”
Ben was my North, my South, my East and West. He was the one who brought me home. He helped me to reconcile with my past. Because of him, I can forgive. I can remember. I can heal.
Ben allowed me to open my heart, to find my way back home.
