Sad Visitation

Happily I sat today at my computer, absorbed in some advocacy for Chiari patients, when I heard my husband call out, "Mom! Look out the window!"

Swivelling the office chair to the east, a vision appeared on the other side of our chainlink fence, between it and the road. The most beautiful grey-white horse! He was loose and just grazing along.

It's been well over a year since I've been near a horse. This sight was like a magnet pulling me up out of my chair and out the door. My husband queried, "What are you doing?" and I said, "I'm going to open our gate to let him in so he won't get hit on the road!"

My concerned spouse said, "Don't do that! We don't want him in here and you will get hurt."

So I stood on the deck and gazed at him, noticing he was a gelding. I whistled to him and he looked at me between rambling bites of green grass. I wanted so badly to scratch above his eyes, to talk to him. But I'd just been scolded like a child and told I'd get hurt. By something I worked with for 40 years.

I came back in the house and he walked back north. I called the police dept. to report him on the road, they told me to call the Sheriff's office, and suddenly, it was too much and it hurt way too much. I hung up the phone, told my husband that the horse was gone from my sight and not my problem now. And I didn't look back out the window.

But ever since, stings of sadness brim my eyes with tears when I think of him. That was the closest I'd been to a horse in so long, even though it 100 feet away. Now I know why I avoid them. I miss them beyond words and the crying hurts so badly at the back of my head.

He was so incredibly beautiful.
He was, simply put, a vision.
A lost connection.
A glimpse into something I'll never have again.
Something I dare not think about.