Monday
People are coming back from Thanksgiving holidays and finding out about Cook passing, so my phone has been ringing off the hook. It’s nice so many people care.
Lindsey gave me a card today with a really nice poem in it about horses and heaven. It made me teary.
The one thing I do know, with no doubts in my heart, is that I will see Cook again. Part of the comfort I feel now, of accepting her being gone, is the fact I know I will see her again.
The song that is comforting to me right now, is a surprising one, ’cause before last Wednesday, I didn’t even like it and never listened to the words.
“Who Knew” - Pink
That last kiss
I’ll cherish
Until we meet again
And time makes
It harder
I wish I could remember
But I keep
Your memory
You visit me in my sleep
My darling
Who knew
My darling
I miss you
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I worked at the barn all day. It felt like 15 minutes even though I was there 8 hours. I was glad to get back to doing something. I was sad I missed riding Missy but it was rainy and I just didn’t get a chance.
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Again, thanks so much for everyone’s well wishes. I would really like everyone to comment on the post where I announced her passing. The one with the kissing picture. That way, when I look back and I’m feeling bad, I can read the comments and feel comforted.
Comment by Lauren
November 26, 2007 @ 11:21 pm
Name of Horses by Donald Hall
All winter your brute shoulders strained against collars, padding
and steerhide over the ash hames, to haul
sledges of cordwood for drying through spring and summer,
for the Glenwood stove next winter, and for the simmering range.
In April you pulled cartloads of manure to spread on the fields,
dark manure of Holsteins, and knobs of your own clustered with oats.
All summer you mowed the grass in meadow and hayfield, the mowing machine
clacketing beside you, while the sun walked high in the morning;
and after noon’s heat, you pulled a clawed rake through the same acres,
gathering stacks, and dragged the wagon from stack to stack,
and the built hayrack back, uphill to the chaffy barn,
three loads of hay a day from standing grass in the morning.
Sundays you trotted the two miles to church with the light load
a leather quartertop buggy, and grazed in the sound of hymns.
Generation on generation, your neck rubbed the windowsill
of the stall, smoothing the wood as the sea smooths glass.
When you were old and lame, when your shoulders hurt bending to graze,
one October the man, who fed you and kept you, and harnessed you every morning,
led you through corn stubble to sandy ground above Eagle Pond,
and dug a hole beside you where you stood shuddering in your skin,
and lay the shotgun’s muzzle in the boneless hollow behind your ear,
and fired the slug into your brain, and felled you into your grave,
shoveling sand to cover you, setting goldenrod upright above you,
where by next summer a dent in the ground made your monument.
For a hundred and fifty years, in the Pasture of dead horses,
roots of pine trees pushed through the pale curves of your ribs,
yellow blossoms flourished above you in autumn, and in winter
frost heaved your bones in the ground - old toilers, soil makers:
O Roger, Mackerel, Riley, Ned, Nellie, Chester, Lady Ghost.
Comment by nikki
November 27, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
I totally get the song thing. After my Magic died, for some reason Lynnard Skynnard’s “Freebird” struck me as “her song.” For a long time, I couldn’t hear that song without crying, and even now I get kinda sad when I hear it. (”If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me? Cause I must be traveling on now…”)
I’m glad you’re able to go to the barn, that’s good. Did you look at that website for the bracelet/necklace?
Comment by Crystal
November 27, 2007 @ 6:07 pm
yes I did. I had googled it after I read about it … i’m gonna do it definitely. I have her tail now and I washed it and it away for right now.
aw, about free bird.
Comment by Anne
November 27, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
http://www.suzannestorms.com/
Suzanne Storms makes horse hair jewelry too. I’ve seen her work at Horse Expos, it’s incredible! She makes bracelets, necklaces, rings, pins, etc. She’s a bit pricey but I love her work!