Hoofprints across my heart...the beginning.

The day was January 21, 1981. Crisp, cold and bright. We'd been waiting all morning, my 3 year old twins and I . And suddenly, there he was in all his 18 month glory…a Morgan colt out of the famous Omar Sheriff, and straight from American Fork, Utah. He was the anonymous gift of untold people from Page, Arizona where Bill Murie (my late husband) was first stationed as a DPS patrolman 5 years earlier, before being fatally injured on Nov. 19^th, 1980 enroute the DPS academy where he was to be a counselor for the upcoming class. Probably one of the greatest ironies of this gift is that the young horse’s registered name was “Mary Mels Billy”…in truth!

So began the saga of 30 years…as he stood there, a huge red, white and blue bow wrapped around his neck, ready to frolic across the pasture kindly offered by my neighbor across the road from Pine Del (Flagstaff) where we now lived. Several months later, I was able to take Billy down to the Verde Valley to be professionally trained by Emery Henderson. When he returned a year later, he could have been a Brumby in Snowy River, so capable and sure-footed he was! He had been taught to drive (pull a cart). And, among many other feats, would even stand motionless while a chain-saw (without chain of course) was started and rubbed all over his legs. He was basically fool-proof. Emery told me “this horse will never kick” and he never did.

...to be continued

Saying Goodbye

Leaving Page late in the afternoon yesterday, I was struck with the irony that all these years my sister Teona has lived in this haunting land of sandstone and azure waters, it never crossed my radar that going up there just to chill and enjoy her and Kaysee's company was an end unto itself and something we both would've enjoyed utterly. But alas, Friday they will be leaving for New Jersey with their U-Haul and dreams of a new and happier life, a certainly a life of totally different vintage than they have known these past 11 years. I am very close to my sister. The thought of her living thousands of miles away is difficult to entertain. I admire her immensely. She has strength that eludes me at this stage of life. I pray that the perfect home will be found, that her new job will be even more than she anticipates and that friendships will emerge to fill the emptiness she will know all too soon. May the U-Haul hold up, may everything fit, may the plants survive, may you find someone to travel with you, may the weather hold, may you and Kaysee have the roadtrip of your lives, may angels surround you and protect you in all ways. I love you.

Afternoon reflections

Sitting beneath the Chinese Elm gently (and not so gently) whipping around in the wind, my mind flits to the white mountains of once beautiful pristine Arizona where everything we knew and loved there has been ravaged by fire...still 0% uncontained, and it's been raging since May 29 when a campfire was left unattended. Our many friends there have been evacuated. The torment of the unknown hovers. 0 % uncontained. How can this be? I heard that the man in charge forbid water be extracted from Big Lake because of an endangered fish. Truly? Have we come to this? That human life and human homes are trumped by an endangered fish? The last I heard, they were trying to save Terry Flat where we used to ride the horses....that's the exquisite meadow at the foot of the climb to the lookout. My heart aches for those whose homes are in jeopardy, for the firefighters so hampered by wind, smoke and command. I pray for God to have mercy and grant that the winds cease their merciless onslaught and the fires be quelled. And I weep...that I must remember these things as lost.

I just talked with Stacey, my vet. She stopped by this afternoon to see how Billy is doing. He doesn't have long, I fear. She will drop off a different kind of medicine to manage the pain in his left knee tomorrow. She said that he may do ok for another month or so...but then, the day WILL come when he just won't be able to get up once he lies down. Bless his dear heart. He is still so alert. still whinneys when I go out to feed him...still relishes his organic apple or carrot before lunch. Oh, my gosh. How on earth can I even think about the inevitable. The pain deepens with every passing day, knowing that each day only brings us closer to his last. Nearly half my life he's shared. The great given, that which I love I must someday say good bye to, is always shoved aside, deep into the recesses of tomorrow. But tomorrow always comes. May God give me the strength.

From Sears Kay Ruin out by Seven Springs, to Hieroglyphic Spring in the Superstitions, to the marvelous place we call home, it was totally wonderful to reconnect with my sister Teona, her very delightful daughter (and my neice!) Kaysee, my brother Jim (all the way from San Diego) and last but not least, the cousin I had not seen in nearly 30 years, Shaun Holly. Time has such a way of tricking us into believing that it doesn't matter so much if we put off keeping in touch, neglect those little random acts of kindness, postpone sending that card, forget to make that call. And suddenly you realize that the months have past, the years flown and so much of what could have been, should have been, would have been isn't and each of us are the poorer because of it's absence. Looking at these photos and many others like them, I am also struck by the fact that with those we love, even despite the lapse of too much time, we can (and do) always reconnect somehow and in the connecting, find ourselves once again enriched beyond anyone's calculation, and part, deeply relishing the very precious time spent together.

November 16, 2010

I love this photo of one of the roses in the bouquet Gary sent me in memorium of Bill's death, now 30 years ago. It symbolizes, first the shadows that engulfed my life, then the faint edges of newness, unfolding into the brilliant and sometimes transparent beauty of a life I could not have designed, complete with fragrance and colors both unexpected and unequivocally essential to the now I know and the tomorrow I await.

Archibald McTavish

And so it is that Archie has bounced into our life with all his rambunctiousness and we are in the throws of full-blown puppydom. I call him my white knight...but what I really mean is my white night(mare) the mare being silent! He is adorable but infuriating, mostly house trained but not always, and of late, absolutely rebellious. When I sweetly call him to come, he just takes off for the far end of the yard. I can't tell you how many times I have been reduced to this pathetic woman racing through the house, around furniture over and over again until he either gets tired or Gary assists me in mad pursuit. Out in the yard it is totally ridiculous, so I have attached a 10 foot piece of nylon cord. Now at least, if I get within 9 feet of him, I have a chance to catch him.Yes, I know, there are more rational ways to deal with this situation..I've tried the treat thing...come to me and get a treat, but he's on to it now. Any ideas?