One of the biggest and best parts of my life was when I was most involved with horses. I will share the story of how that came to be some other time, but today I just wanted to say something about Flame, my first horse :)
In my Composition class I had to write about an event that happened to me, and I immediately knew what it would be. I am very happy with the result, and I hope you enjoy reading it!
Flaming Roses
At one point in her life, every little girl dreams of owning a horse. For years I dreamed of owning one until it finally came true; I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was early on a Sunday afternoon in October 2004 and I was with my family driving home from the airport after coming back from a week-long vacation in Florida. In the back of the car, stowed away in my suitcase was a flyer for a 17-year old chestnut Arabian gelding named Dollar.
“Take it home with you,” Joelle, the owner of the barn, had said to me as she caught me staring at the flyer the week before I left for Florida. “Who knows? Maybe your parents will say yes this time.” She smiled, her brown-green eyes twinkling.
I carried that piece of paper around with me and treasured it like it was gold. I made sure my parents knew about it and I asked them repeatedly if I could have him. They would just smile and say “maybe someday.”
When we were almost home, my mom turned around in the passenger seat to face me. “As soon as we get home I need to you to change into your riding clothes so we can go out to the barn.”
“Why?” I asked.
She glanced at my dad before answering. “Your dad and I have decided that we will buy you a horse. And not just any horse. Dollar is at the barn now and you are going to go ride him to see if you like him.”
I gasped, instantly grinning from ear to ear.
My mom smiled at my reaction and continued, “Joelle called before we left and told us that if we were going to buy you a horse, we would have to do so soon because she isn’t sure how many more horses she will allow to be boarded there. And we know you want to be at the same barn as your friends.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I squealed excitedly.
We finally arrived at the barn after what seemed like years, and I jumped out of our car before my dad had the engine turned off. I ran to the barn to grab my helmet and then sprinted down the path between the horse pastures to get to the outdoor arena where the chestnut Arabian was waiting.
I pushed open the swinging metal gate and watched the horse I had been dreaming of for weeks trot by with a petite black-haired girl riding him. He held his tail proudly like any Arabian, and he seemed to be floating on air.
“Hi, Mackenzie,” Joelle said brightly. I walked to where she stood in the middle of the arena watching the horse and rider go by her.
“Hi,” I responded as the rider slowed the horse down to a walk over to where Joelle and I were standing. She dismounted and smiled at me.
“Hi, I’m Anna. And this,” she patted the horse’s neck, “is Dollar. Would you like to get on him?”
“Yes,” I barely breathed as I quickly strapped on my helmet. Anna placed the brown leather reigns in my hand and I stepped closer to Dollar, stroking the white stripe on his face. He lowered his head so I could slide the reigns over. I placed my left foot in the stirrup, mounted, and gathered the reigns in both of my hands.
“Just squeeze your legs to let him know whenever you are ready to go,” Anna told me.
I smiled at my parents as they joined Joelle in watching. Everything started fading away until it was just me and this horse that I desperately wanted to be mine. I felt like I had known him forever as we walked, trotted, and cantered around the arena under Anna’s direction.
After about half an hour, I directed Dollar toward the center where Joelle, Anna, and my parents stood talking.
“He can be more skittish than other horses, but he is safe for a young rider,” Anna was saying. “He definitely has some trust issues, but with patience and love he will outgrow those. His previous owners had a farm with fifty other Arabians. When the husband died, his wife went kind of crazy and stopped caring for the horses and abused some of them. Half of them starved to death and the other half were going to be sent to slaughter. I saved Dollar and another horse, Rocky, and have tried to fatten them up some. Dollar could still use more food though.”
My heart broke for him. It was true that he needed to be cared for and fed more. You could see all his ribs, but I knew with proper attention and care he could be perfectly healthy. I knew I had it in me to help him, and my parents agreed. That day he became mine and I renamed him Flame.
Three years later, Flame was practically a new horse. I could call to him by his name in the pasture and he would come up to me right away. When I sprayed him with fly spray or water from a hose he did not roll his eyes back in fear and try bolting away. He was no longer so jumpy that he would shy away from his own shadow.
On a chilly Sunday night in November I finished my ride and was done grooming Flame. I hugged his strong, yet delicate, head tightly to my chest, smothering his face with my jacket. For once, my typically high-strung horse did not pull away. He was too exhausted to care, or he really was beginning to build back the trust that another human had broken long ago. The moment was frozen in time, and we were content with resting peacefully against each other.
I scratched his ears and quietly reminded him that I loved him, the broken horse that he was. His ability to forgive and slowly begin to trust again in the humans that had once abused him was a reminder of his strength. I returned him to his pasture and gave him one last treat; I hated having to leave him.
The week flew by quickly and soon it was Wednesday, the busiest day of the week for me. Not only did I have school and basketball that night, but I had youth group as well.
After basketball practice I made my way towards my locker, talking and laughing with two of my friends, when I heard someone call out my name.
“Mackenzie!”
I looked up, surprised, and noticed it was my mom coming towards me. “Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked quickly as she approached me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her make-up was smudged; she had obviously been crying. Everything bad that could have happened started playing through my mind: my dad had gotten in a car accident, my grandpa had another heart attack, or maybe our house burned down.
“I don’t really know,” she paused, “Joelle just called; Flame broke his shoulder this afternoon. Hon, we need to go be with him. The vet will be there soon to take x-rays.”
I instantly felt the world slow, and I sank slowly to my knees as both of my friends gasped. That was not at all what I had been expecting to hear. Before I knew it, there were uncontrollable tears streaming down my face. “What’s the use?” I cried, “If it’s broken, it’s broken, and I’ll have to put him down.” I immediately felt pessimistic; what good could possibly come of a horse with a broken leg?
Within half an hour of hearing the news, I arrived at the barn with my mom. Everything about the farm looked normal from the outside. The sky was dark and twinkling with stars; the lights from inside the barn glowed yellow and lit up the pastures around it. Horses munched quietly on the round bales of hay or lazily walked around looking for something to do.
I slid open the sliding barn door so the crack was big enough to get to, and felt the warmth of the barn as my mom and I entered. Flame was in the first stall on the left and I forced myself to walk over to him. I did not want to see that this was really happening; I wanted to make myself believe that I was only dreaming it. I leaned into the opening of the stall, not trusting myself to go in it yet.
“Hey there, buddy,” I whispered, sniffing back the tears that were about to start again. He was facing the corner munching on hay, but he slowly turned his neck so that his left eye was on me. He was so peaceful looking. I would not have been able to guess that his shoulder was broken if I had not already been told.
The barn door slid open again and Joelle entered, her eyes crinkled as she smiled sadly at me. “He ran into a two by four pole today. All of the horses were out in the field and something must have spooked him, causing him to bolt right into the fence post.”
I nodded.
“We need to get him out of the stall; the x-ray machine won’t fit in there,” Joelle gently took charge.
“Can he even walk?” I asked.
“Well, it’s more of a hop than a walk. He has been a very brave boy; you should be proud of him.”
We entered the stall and Flame eyed us warily. I stroked his neck as I surveyed his right shoulder; it stuck out at an odd angle. Coaxing him gently, I pulled on his halter so he would turn towards me. He built up momentum by rocking back and forth on his three good legs and then hopped forward, landing only on his left leg, his right leg swinging. We repeated this painfully slow process a couple of more times to get him in a more suitable place to be x-rayed. He stood there patiently as the vet checked him out, and then we had to repeat the moving process as we brought him back into the stall. It was so hard to watch him put on a brave front when I knew how much pain he was in.
The vet wrote a few things down on her clipboard as I shut the stall door and walked back to her. She looked up at my mom and me and tucked a short brown strand of hair behind her ear. “His shoulder is definitely broken. For a couple of thousand dollars we can put him through surgery, but the success rate of him having the ability to walk again is less than twenty percent. Your other option is of course to euthanize him. I know it won’t be an easy decision to make.”
The tears started again.
Thursday was a rough day. Instead of going to school, my dad and I headed to the barn. As we were walking towards the barn, Joelle came out of it.
“I couldn’t keep him in the stall anymore. He can’t get very far if he tried to anyways. Feel free to give him as much grain as you want. He deserves to be spoiled.” She placed her hand on my shoulder as she passed us to go back to her house.
Flame looked up and snorted half-heartedly as we came into the barn. He was in the open area between the stalls with a pail of grain in front of him and piles of hay bales around him.
We spent a couple of hours with him. We made sure he always had enough food and water, groomed him until he was the cleanest he had ever been, and just sat on the hay bales around him to keep him company.
When Friday rolled around, I arrived at the barn with a heavy heart, not at all looking forward to what I knew I had to do.
Leading Flame out of the barn was a slow process, but he went so willingly it broke my heart. Did he know what was happening? Was he agreeing with my decision? Why did I have to make this decision?
Flame and I stood in the middle of my small group of barn friends who had come out to support me. None of them had a dry eye. I ran my hands through his mane, and stroked the white stripe down the front of his head. My tears rolled down my face falling to the dirt-covered earth below. I could not be strong anymore, not even for him.
Joelle walked behind him with a scissors and cut off his thick tail, the part of him that everyone said was the most beautiful. Flame’s ears swiveled and he twisted around to look at what she was doing. Satisfied that he was not feeling any pain, he faced the front again. His large, brown eyes stared at me kindly, almost understandingly, as if he had accepted his fate and was okay with it. He understood that his twenty-one years of life were rich and full of stories. Although his life was not always a happy one, he knew he had made my life better, and I had given him someone to love and be loved by.
“Tell me when you’re ready,” the vet said kindly, dabbing her own eyes with a tissue.
I took a deep breath. This was for him, even if I did not want to do it. My throat burned and in my mind I was screaming no.
I nodded.
“First, I will inject him with something that will numb him so he won’t feel anything. Then comes the euthanization part, okay?”
“Okay,” I managed as she drew the first needle.
Flame shuddered as the first needle went in his neck, and relaxed as it came back out, his eyelids drooping. The vet stuck the second and final needle in and emptied its contents. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a small step back as Flame swayed back and forth, unsteady on his legs. Within five seconds it was over, and I heard a huge thud as my 1,000 pound best friend collapsed.
I opened my eyes again to find him lifeless on the ground. Not sure what else to do I kneeled in the dirt and gave his head one long final hug. Everyone around me offered their condolences and repeated what a good horse he had been.
I was relieved that he was not in pain anymore, although I wish the whole outcome could have been different. I placed a couple of bright orange roses over the tarp covering his body; they were the color of flames.
Flame ~ June 15th, 1987-November 16th, 2007
Flame and I got our own Christmas card the year I got him
I love this picture but I couldn't find the original so I had to take this one out of my scrapbook :)
I love this picture too! It captures his personality perfectly. There wasn't a place for him to put his head out of the stall so I would slide the doors open so he was able to. He stood there without being tied up when he could have pushed his way through and escaped :)
Flame and I - Summer 2007
:)
It has been about 4 years now since I had to put him down. He was the most beautiful horse ever and I miss him a lot. I still wonder what my life would have been like if he was still alive today.
After I visited the barn last week I remembered how much I missed riding and being around horses. I still want them to be a part of my life and hopefully I will have another one of my own within the next couple of years :)
