Nine Years Short and Long - pipTalk Forums

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OwlSA
Member Rara Avis

since 2005-11-07

Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

0 posted 2011-04-28 01:03 AM

NINE YEARS SHORT AND LONG
28 April 2011

Nine years today
my heart was ripped out of its casing
when you, my beloved boy, my beloved horse, Flicka,
went to Heaven.

The sobs rack my body, my heart and my spirit
now for the millionth time,
as I remember every moment of it,
the hours of sitting with your head on my lap
in your stable
as your brother and sister-in-law and the stable manageress
phoned everywhere to find you a burial place
and the gratitude when your sister-in-law eventually found one
on a beautiful horse farm in the country.

You were so beloved at the stables
that everybody rallied round
and a horse-box was offered
and a crane to help load you
and a yellow bulldozer to dig your grave.
Your brother wanted to save me
seeing you being loaded
into the horse box
but I had to be with you every second
and I was glad then and forever
that I was there to see
for the dignity and love with which the crane-driver
and the grooms and your brother
laid you so gently into the horse-box
will live with me all the days of my life
and forever more when I have joined you in Heaven.

Then there was the long journey to the farm,
your brother driving you
so carefully and with so much love and care,
trying to direct the waterfall of my tears elsewhere than
on your beautiful head
where it lay in my lap;
then Karin, our benefactor, wanting to show me the foals
to save me see you being buried,
but I couldn’t leave you,
I needed to be with you every possible second;
then my wanting to jump into your grave
to arrange your head
but your brother doing it instead
because it would be easier
for him to get out of the grave again
in more ways than one, I realise now,
then my hysterics at the horror of the soil
covering you
and everyone’s support.

My sweet darling horse,
who along with first Daisy and then Tigger
send me cloud and sky messages every day
the way Gilbert the head-groom who
went to Heaven three and a half months ahead of you did
to us as I walked you every day of those last Gilbertless months
of the thirty-seventh and a half year
of your beautiful and loving life –
my sweet darling horse,
the pain is too great,
to write more now.
We will talk again as always. . .
today and tomorrow and every day forever.
I know you knew long before you were mine,
and more every day.
but it bring me solace to say
Mommy loves you with every ounce of her being.

Owl

Honeybunch
Member Rara Avis

since 2001-12-29

Posts 7115
South Africa

1 posted 2011-04-28 04:01 AM

Oh, hell, got me crying now. Our beloved pets live with us forever if we remember them with love as you have done here. There will one day be a grand reunion - I have no doubt of that.

Helen

JerryPat2
Member Laureate

since 2011-02-06

Posts 16975
South Louisiana

2 posted 2011-04-28 07:55 AM

Yep. I absolutely know that feeling, Owl. 'Nuff said.

~ Passionate kiss, like spider web, leads to undoing of fly. ~

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis

since 2005-11-07

Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

3 posted 2011-04-28 10:41 AM

Thank you Helen for your beautiful reply. I was Flicka's for 20½ years and he was 37½ very healthy (human) years old when he went to Heaven. It is very hard.

Thank you, Jerry. I know you do. Thank you for responding.

Owl

Sunshine

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-25

Posts 63354
Listening to every heart

4 posted 2011-04-28 03:23 PM

You, my friend, need to know when to issue hanky alerts.

Thank God we have our memories.

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis

since 2005-11-07

Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa

5 posted 2011-04-28 03:52 PM

Watery smile through the aching. Thanks Karilea for the comments and the hug and reminding me how lucky I was to have been Flicka's for 20½ years. I remind myself quite often that the harsher the pain, the greater the gift one had of the horse, or cat or dog or other animal or person that one is mourning. Nevertheless, it is hard.

Owl

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