My Grandfather Horse had an emergency vet call this week. He’s okay now, but I’ll be even more particular in his feeding, which is already very particular. His legs are thick and tired, and his eyesight is bad. He’s an old 26 this year. The vet told me horses don’t get dementia, but I don’t believe it. So I tell my Grandfather Horse stories.
I remind him of his courage and his beauty, and how we persevered against the odds, again and again. We’ve both gone white with years of time: crisp morning rides, endless grooming sessions, and bareback cool downs. He gave me an ease of movement and a peace of mind, he gave me a place to be. I will forever tell him these stories, I will always return the favor.
Sometimes I remind him that there is a place so far in the past that we didn’t even know each other, but we can hardly remember that time.
Nostalgia: 1: the state of being homesick : homesickness. 2: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period.
Anna Blake, Infinity Farm.
WordPress Photo Challenge is a weekly prompt to share a photo- I enjoy twisting these macro prompts to share our micro life here on the Colorado prairie. My photos are taken with my phone. No psych, definitely not high-tech.
“Sometimes I remind him that there is a place so far in the past that we didn’t even know each other, but we can hardly remember that time.” What a beautiful and moving expression and story.
Thanks, but it is all him.
I sometimes wish I was with Sony in his senior years… he was well cared for and loved, and had some good horse friends, but I was 3700 miles away…
So hard… hard to be away and hard to be home with them watching…
What a wonderful post to read this morning, as I sip my coffee. What love. What sweet sentiments. Thank you!
Thank you, he is a very sweet old horse.
Beautiful…
Getting older, horse or human, is heartbreaking and rewarding in equal measure. I too love what you said about “there was a time before we knew each other”. It’s something at which to marvel: how can that be?
Thank you, He is a marvel, every day.
Hope he is feeling better. in reality you have this sense that you have always known each other.
“he gave me a place to be” – love this & so true about all of them, especially the ones we have known for what seems to be forever (love that part too – “hard to remember the time we didn’t know each other”) – very best wishes to your grandfather horse . . .
Thanks, Chris. He is getting preferential treatment, well, a little more than usual, and doing better.
Oh Anna!…so beautifully said…a love affair for the ages.
Maybe, but you know him. He makes it very easy.
What a sweet gift, these stories collected wihin the larger story of The Two Of You. How can love be so enduring and fragile all at once? Kisses to you both.
Sigh.