He never stopped being brand
new. If I looked at him a million times, then a million times my breath caught
in my throat and a million times my heart skipped a beat. Like that childhood
Christmas present you wished for that you never thought you'd get. You'd
squint your eyes and look again and couldn't believe it's true. Mine. My
own. Looking at him was a thrill for me from the first time I saw him until
the moment I said goodbye.
He was so beautiful. Slim,
fine bones and a velvet coat that mixed all of the shades between black and
gray to white. His mane was long and soft and caught drops of sunlight like
they were diamond adornments. He had a beautiful, kind face with big eyes
that didn't look at you, but searched you. Really searched you.
To watch him move was to
experience time stopping. That effortless, weightless float with his tail
raised high. It seemed as though his feet did not touch the ground. It was
something I could never peel my eyes away from, and each time I saw it, my
heart would nearly break coming to understand that something on earth could
be so divinely perfect.
I have never known another
being, human or animal who so craved to connect, to engage, to know another.
He was intelligent, sensitive and challenging in ways that I never could
have imagined.
He was not easy to ride.
You had to embody softness and calm, like some mysterious ancient mantra
was needed to unlock his universe of weightlessness and flight.
We were just getting there
- making our own universe and entering a place I had never dreamed of as
a rider when laminitis first clawed at our world. At first it wasn't so bad,
but when it returned, and as he aged, his reserve to bounce back was eroded
a bit more each time. But he fought it with a cheerful, determined courage,
never resisting the endless stream of foot soaks and hoof wraps and treatments.
He had a lot of heart for a little horse.
We both fought so hard.
In his final years, I had the image of always trying to hold back a mountain
of grief and pain that threatened to bury us, but we held that mountain off
and found in its looming shadow a beautiful, quiet place of love and peace
and understanding even more amazing than the place we had found when we rode.
I think we both knew our time together would be much too short and we stole
as much time as we could. We stole time.
He was
silly and funny and quirky and sweet. He mastered an exaggerated pout with
his rubbery black lips and cocked his head 'just so' and made goofy faces
when he wanted a cookie. He would "kiss kiss" with that lip. He loved clicker
games, his old friend Triton, his little donkey Brown Baby, and me. He loved
the sound of silly songs, to have his bottom rubbed and oh, how he loved
to be pampered! He loved his daily brushing, to be blanketed talked to. He
was pretty chatty himself. Low nickers and whinnies, moans and groans and
the ever-present sound of a banging breakfast bucket.
His eyes would sparkle when
he made me laugh. He liked sharing secret jokes. I know that he smiled and
laughed with his eyes.
I loved him with the fierce,
protective love of a mother, the reckless and wild passion of a lover and
the blind adoration of a child.
If the veil between life
and death could be torn so I could see him again, I would shred the very
fabric of the Universe to be with him, but I know he had to move along on
his fantastic and necessary journey, his pure and loving heart to guide
him.
He was the light of my
life and I will miss him every day; perhaps every instant for the rest of
my life, but never forget to be grateful for the absolute miracle that he
was in my life. This small and beautiful horse that came to me with his lessons
of magic and joy, courage and love.
Run free, my darling, run
free and fly and remember - "more than life itself".
Written in loving
memory of my beloved Harvey,
By owner Laurie Mearns
Harvey's
Song was written by Laurie in honor of her beloved boy.