So I got some disturbing news yesterday. Today I got more of the details.
On
the one hand, this is another “Everybody in life makes choices” kind of
post. On the other hand, well, you hate to be the person who made the
first bad choice that led to the next bad choice that finally led to the
worst bad choice.
The bad news comes from Laurie, back in Walla Walla.
On
Sunday night she posted to Facebook that her daughter L was in the
hospital because a horse had rolled on her. I immediately felt that
horrible plunge in my belly—Oh God, Otto—followed by logic. OF
COURSE it wasn’t Otto. L is just a kid, she has other kid-appropriate
horses that she rides. It was probably the trusty old horse, Nugget. He
probably slipped and fell in the mud and broke her leg. Bad luck. Better
send Laurie a note.
Yesterday,
an update: L’s pelvis is broken. She is in too much pain to sleep, even
at the hospital, even with drugs. She needs full-time care. Laurie, who
was already in a bad place financially, is facing down massive hospital
bills and is looking for home medical supplies for after L is
discharged. She will be bedridden for weeks, potentially.
I
felt so terrible for Laurie. All the things she has gone through. Her
own health problems and life challenges. Her difficult ex. Her problems
with her neighbors and the county. She is such a survivor, and yet these
things keep happening to her. It’s like she can’t catch a break.
Of course, when you spend a lot of time with horses, you take the chance of getting hurt. I think most horse people have accepted that the odds of never being in a horse-related accident are slim to none. If it wasn't this horse, this day, it would be another horse on another day. Sooner or later, your number is up.
But.
But. Today, I got the news that I had been dreading. I really had shut the
possibility out of my mind, because it was just too awful to
contemplate:
“People who know
us and our horses have been tentatively asking "which horse was it?" NO,
it was not any of [L's] most dearly beloveds, Nugget, Jerry, and Scout.
It was not any of my lesson horses. It was Otto, my high-spirited
endurance horse.”
…
“She
got him out, groomed him....he fell asleep at the hitching
post...saddled him, donned the mandatory helmet (good girl!)...and had
just been trotting him happily around the yard when "it" happened.
Neither of us really knows what "it" was. She had gone by with a big
smile saying what fun and how "noodly" he is (he IS noodly, at
first....in his oh-so-Arab way he looks around at everything and goes
through this little series of back-and-forth sideways spooks before he
gets his focus. The first two miles of any endurance race are like that
with him, then he goes to work and it's all business. Well....she was
passing me for maybe the third time....went right by me...touching
distance....when he suddenly seemed to plant and scramble backwards like
something had startled him, losing his balance and going up at the same
time.”
…
“She
fell off backwards when he hit the vertical, still holding the reins.
There was a sick moment where I saw her clearly, on the ground, her legs
spread, on her back, still holding the right rein, and him teetering on
his hind legs. I remember praying for him to fall away from her. Then
his right hind seemed to shoot forward out from under him. It had rained
earlier, and the grass and wood chips were slick. So there he teetered,
then down he came with a sickening crack. I hoped the crack was the
saddle, but it wasn't. He had to roll back and forth to get momentum to
get back up, and that roll was back and forth across [L’s] torso and
legs.”
Of course I feel
guilty. But it is more than that. Emotions are funny things. My decision
to give Otto up has been validated yet again. He was always
unpredictable and unstable. He certainly did buck and rear when he was
upset. Everything was a potential trigger. This "accident" was classic Otto behavior taken to its inevitable conclusion.
Foremost in my mind: It could have been me. If I hadn’t given Otto up, it could
have been me in that hospital bed. Me in that pain. Me with the
financial burden. Me with the nightmares.
Second-foremost:
I sold Laurie this horse. Yes, she knew what he was like and why I was
selling him, but I still feel sick to think that Laurie wrote me a check
a few years ago… only to take on this burden.
I feel like I sold her a loaded gun. Yes, she was aware that it was a gun and that it was loaded, but I don't feel like her foreknowledge really absolves me. The safest choice—the most ethical choice, the most socially responsible, love-thy-neighbor, no-man-is-an-island choice—would have been to keep the weapon locked away... or to destroy it.
Because the alternative is to trade
it for lucre and live with the consequences.
