Equine Soul

In many ways I was raised by animals. Not wolves or bears or eagles, and not a metaphor for horrific parenting. No, my parents were quite wonderful, for most of the years. I was raised by the constant presence of creatures I was not worthy of befriending or worthy of receiving their affection. Animals have a unique gift for forgiving people of their worst behaviors and accepting them in an absolute and necessary time of need. They simply save lives by existing. When my heart beats I can sometimes feel an echo of a thousand little footprints.

My earliest memory is not necessarily the happiest. In some ways it's gruesome, but I'm still forever grateful that the main focus of that memory as a child was my horse, Philly. We came to be together at two years old, only a few months apart in age, and I couldn't have been more lucky to be given the opportunity to learn from such a spiteful and charismatic creature. Philly was full of fire and adventure that soon led to an injury almost beyond repair. That memory is now not an image, but more an imprint of a dream almost remembered. I'm two years old, teetering on tiny legs making slow progress to our barn. I round the corner and peer in. There's the silhouette of two people working frivolously around Philly, but the memory is distant and as a toddler I didn't understand that those silhouettes were my father and a veterinarian saving her life. I later learned she had managed to impale herself on a metal fence post trying to jump to the other side of what she could only assume was greener grass. She was literally inches away from tearing her jugular and bleeding out, but it wouldn't be for over two decades that her time would come, so for now she would be put back together and start her path to recovery.

There isn't a time in the first 18 years of my life that Philly wasn't there somehow. Whether the summer spending hours scooping horse manure, or riding in 100 degree heat just trying to prepare ourselves for the next show where we were never a stellar team, but people knew us. Other horses came and went, but Philly was always too close to our hearts to part with. I quite literally considered her family.

When I was 17 we moved from our family farm where my sister and I were both born and I felt my life crumble. That farm had been the foundation for our family for so many years, and I didn't understand at 17 what moving really meant; how it was actually going to help rather than hinder. I refused to unpack my new room for 6 months in protest of this injustice. After a while the new house became a home, bringing with it pieces of our old life. Philly was the main anchor to this new structure, acting as a sort of tie to my old life and childhood.

When she died I felt like a part of me left with her. She was the foundation for a multitude of childhood memories spanning into my early adulthood. When you grow with a constant presence like that, you're stuck with an unrealistic expectation that they'll live forever; that you'll never have to part ways. But that wasn't the truth, and when she died I felt my heart shatter.

I remember saying good bye to her; stroking her soft nose and whispering to her "I love you. Thank you for everything you've done for me. And when I leave this place I hope you're the first soul to greet me in my passing."

I wasn't actually there when she finally passed. I had said my good bye the day before, hoping that some miracle would take place and she would start aging in reverse, returning to me her youthful untamed self.

I couldn't bring myself to drive out to my parents' and watch the light leave her eyes, her body go still. But I regret not being there and I feel like I let her down in so many ways. I still cry every now and then; hoping beyond anything that she knows I loved her and just how much of my soul she helped shape.

If I close my eyes and think down to my deepest memories, I can picture every detail of her perfectly: course black mane; soft nose; face forever a filly; the two white marks on her back; the deep scar running down her neck; her wild and untamed spirit.