05/17/2017
I would have trimmed her hooves for free, just as a send-off gift.
But yesterday she could hardly stand.
So why put her through it one more time.
Life had finally ganged up on her for the last time.
This old mare had the old scars to prove her life had been tough, probably since the time she was young.
And for a long time she was as tough as them. She out trotted them for many years until she slowed and they finally caught up with her.
And over the past year, old age, a past tangled with old rusty wire, plus the dilapidation, degeneration and disarray that comes with age, had taken to ridin' her pretty hard every day and showing her no mercy.
Healed over wire cuts from that hard past scarred her left front foot.
Those old cuts have always bothered her. Probably injuries on the inside, invisible damage unseen by the eye.
But, aren't some of the worst injuries those that others cannot see?
She saw her share of trouble and then some.
Death did not sneak up on her, no matter how much wire fencing tried to make it happen.
There are plenty of bumps in the road you can hit without going out of your way to find new ones.
Wire fencing certainly qualifies as one of those bumps that horses were never meant to have to worry about.
I trimmed her at the previous owner's, and for the past 5 years or so at the current owners.
Over the years I've worked for him, this current owner has taken in a few horses that no one would have traded a set of re-capped lawnmower tires for.
Through careful care, the current owner no doubt added a few good years to those horses' lives.
This mare was no exception.
"Hell, I took better care of her than I did of myself," he said.
Kindness sometimes is as simple as a man who takes in damaged horses. And sometimes it's as simple as a syringe of death administered by a veterinarian.
"The vet is coming this afternoon to put her down," he told me while looking at the ground.
But given that the old will die and the young just might, it was her time.
I knew it.
The owner knew it.
And I'm not sure if she didn't know it, too.
I found it hard to look her in the face as I hand-fed her some oats. I always gave her oats as a reward for allowing me to work on her feet despite her pain.
This time I gave her oats for no reason.
It's hard to stare into the "River Of Hope" when it has all but gone dry.
And the horseflies didn't help.
They were so bad yesterday that it made me question to myself why God created then and whether or not they might be horseflies in heaven.
Part of that question was already ask a few years ago in a Jefferson County pasture while I was trimming a mule.
"Recon' day'll be hossflies in heaven," Brother Rufus ask as he caught one in mid-air by the mule's right ear. "If'n day is, it shore might not be worth givin' up Sunday fishin' for."
To the holiness faith, fishing on Sunday is a sin. Or it was anyway when I was growing up. That's why fishing on Sunday was so much fun, I guess.
I fed the old mare another handfull of oats, for no reason.
And I quietly wondered if horses have a sense of impending death.
The owner told me a story yesterday of one of his old crippled up horses he picked up down the state and brought back here to live.
The horse did pretty good for a few years, then began to fail. He started lying down a lot, losing weight, and—despite the vet's efforts over past weeks—finally got to where he could hardly get up.
So the vet was called to come and put him down.
The horse had been lying down for a day.
"As the vet was driving up," the owner told me, "the horse raised his head, looked at the vet's truck, layed his head back down and died as the vet was driving up."
I guess that horse knew that on that day anyway, death would come calling on a Chevy truck.
We all hope that our failing animals will just die in the night, that way we won't have to make the decision.
But it seldom happens that way.
But really, making that hard decision is just as much a part of our commitment to take care of them as feeding them is.
After the vet leaves today the old mare will be buried in the shade, not far from her stall.
The owner knew it.
I knew it.
The old mare knew it, too.
So for one more time, I gave her a handful of oats, for no reason other than so her last memory of me will be better than my last memory of her.
And I turned and walked away.
A noble end to a noble life for a noble old mare.
