Two Years

It's been two years since I last saw my boy living and breathing.  Granted, it wasn't much left of a life, and I wish our good-bye had been something so much sweeter.  But we were together, where we always ended up.

Moe and I at a schooling show, Hoffman Farms 1995ish

Today I celebrated Moe's memory by spending the evening with his two remaining buddies, Trinity and Fansi.  It's what he would have wanted, for me to be happy with his friends, with the sun warming our skin and the breeze kissing our cheeks.  I even snuck Fansi a few extra treats in his honor, just because he would've been the first one pick-pocketing me for his share.

Wherever you are, Moe, I hope you know how much I'm missing you and that my heart's breaking all over again as I write this.  Peace and love, sweet boy.

Trinity and her new bonnet.  She's thrilled.

Action shot with Trin.

Sunset ride on Fansi.  She is skeptical of the shutter sound on the phone.

Life Keeps Going On. 

The Court

This was the other half of the writing challenge for my group.  I'm not on this team, but I decided to give it a half-hearted shot.  For this prompt, we were to write describing setting only.

The Court  

This is a pretty picture that belongs to someone. I just don't know who.

The voice of the breeze carries above all others, hushing the chatter of birds and humming of the insects.  They rush among the crowd and tap each one on the shoulder announcing the presence of the king. Throngs of green bow in reverence to the victorious fingers of the mountains.  The rocks thrust themselves into the blue sky, challenging the threatening clouds.  

The only ones brave enough to stand against the hills are the Juniper trees.  Few they be, they stand straight as warriors.  Wielding their prickles and thorns in gnarled fists, their scarred bodies defy the wind.  They grit their teeth and squint against the rain.  

***

How would you describe this picture?

Lines

In one of my writing groups, we were given a few pictures to choose from and the task to write a story either based on the character or setting to see which stories were more appealing to the readers.  We were asked to keep the story under 1000 words, and told that it didn't need to be a complete story, a scene was okay.

With that being said, here's the picture I selected followed by my vision of this man.

Photo credits to whoever took this picture. You know who you are.  

Lines – Character/Plot

S.J. Henderson

Lines. Ain’t that the story of my life? Always been standing in one line or the other, my whole blasted life.

Today I’m stuck in the soup line behind the old lady with rollers sticking out of her hair like pussywillows and tufts of cat hair clinging to her pink housecoat. Always bumped into by the guy waving his hands like he’s conducting at Carnegie Hall while talking three octaves too loudly about politician so-and-so to his buddy. Who cares about the crooks in office? I sure don’t. All those suits ever done is send innocent people to their death while they’re busy signing ridiculous bills and screwing some floozy on the side.

It was a handful of them crooks who gave me the lines above my right eye--my sightin’ eye. The one that saw every last second. I’d poke the cursed thing out if I thought I had the balls to do it. But I lost those as soon as I let that kid die.

He couldn’t have been more than 11 or 12, the age of my little cousin, Ben. They’d sent a kid into the stinking paddy with a rifle bigger than he was. And now the kid was a murderer. His big black eyes grew wide as he watched my buddy crumple, dead before he even hit the mud. Ray--that was my buddy’s name. Had a girl he planned to marry if we ever made it back home, and four younger brothers and sisters to help care for after his Dad passed.

The Vietnamese boy, the enemy, turned his rifle from Ray to me. The spot where my heart should have been. Truth be told, my heart stopped beating a long time ago, when I took my first step on this blood-soaked ground.

“Do it,” I said, opening my arms to expose my chest. “I don’t want to live another day in this hellhole.”

The boy blinked. His finger shook on the trigger. I may as well have been recitin’ the ever-loving Constitution, for all the English he knew.

I pointed at my heart, my fingers in an L-shape. A gun. “Bang!”

The tiniest bump at his throat bobbed as he gulped. He doesn’t want to kill me or he’d have done it already. I wish he’d make up his mind already, or at least run off before something worse happened. But he didn’t.

Another soldier, a guy named Lou, came around the corner and his boots slid in the muck. When he spied poor Ray on the ground, and me and the boy in our stand-off, his rifle locked on the boy with a click.

“Wait!” I don’t know who I was talking to, the kid or Lou. All I know was that I didn’t want to see another river of blood or another broken body.

Lou grunted then fired a round. The boy was too slow. His round eyes focused on mine as he fell to his knees, and then facedown into the muck. I didn’t cry for him, or for dead Ray who wouldn’t get to marry his sweetheart or provide for his family.

Instead, I stand in lines. Lines for food. Lines for shelter. Lines for everything because I’m not free to be me.

Well-dressed women with their manicured nails and little yappy dogs shrink to the other side of sidewalk when I scuffle by. Men in business suits with cell phones attached to their ears tell me to get a job as they plink pennies at my feet. Problem is, no one wants to hire a ghost of a man who jumps every time a hammer strikes a nail or hits the dirt when someone drops a load of wood.

The lines will take me, though. I blend in here among the outcasts, the forgotten, the spooks.

Third Time's a Charm

On July 22, 2011 I met Claire Darling for the very first time.  At the time, Claire was an 18-year-old high school student by morning, horse trainer by every spare hour after that.  She quickly became a friend of mine because she's sarcastic and self-deprecating, a good soul.  Two-and-a-half years and three books later, she and I are pretty tight.  I've fought for her to fall in love and I cried with her (over and over) when her heart was shattered into pieces.  She's struggled and she's endured.  She's no Super Woman, but that's why she's real.  Well, real is a relative term, but you know what I mean.

Over the past couple of years, I've come to adore good guys Liam and Graham.  I've loved to hate all those shady characters--Rayna, Rowan, and Maureen.  Maybe you've found the strings of your emotions tugged by one or more of them, too.  If that's true for you, then I thank you for investing yourself in my humble words.

There's so much I want to say, but so much I can't because I don't want to give anything away.  That, and I'm so overwhelmed by the day that I don't know where to begin and where to end.  

Maybe Liam says it best in the last paragraph I wrote today that brought the third and final novel to a close:  

"With any luck, tomorrow his big heart will eclipse anything he lacks. At least, this is what I pray as I stare out at the stars strung in the deep blue. I want him to find his own place to belong, because I’ve found that place for myself, a home, and I’m homesick."


Like Liam, I've found a home in Hope Creek and I'm already homesick. 

Thanks, guys, for everything you've given me.  You'll never know what you've done for me.

Joy

Do you know joy?  I do.

I hear it in the giggle of the girl bouncing along with her pony's trot.

Do you know joy?  I do.

I see it in the grin of the man whose legs cannot move him, but his horse can.

Do you know joy?  I do.

I feel it in the happy step of an animal connecting with their human.

Do you know joy?  You should.

Rear View Mirror

I expect him to pass her by.

He doesn't, and I should have seen it comin'.  My older brother, Joe, never missed an opportunity to tease me.  Then again, he didn't pass up a chance to flirt with a pretty girl, either.

"Cut it out, Joe!"  I growl through gritted teeth.  Heat creeps up from my neck to my cheeks, and the sprinkling of freckles there fade into red.  There's only so far I can shimmy down in the Model A's bench seat to hide myself from her sight.  I'd like very much to slug my brother for his fooling.

"Hey, Toots!"  He calls out the open window to the dark-haired girl walking behind our car.  "Want a ride?"

She doesn't even give him the satisfaction of looking our direction, which, in a way, makes his grin broaden.  Instead, she trains her deep brown eyes on the gravel immediately before her own two feet.  We all know that even if she wanted to ride with a troublemaker like my brother or mortified me, she'd have to pass it by her daddy.  Besides, she's nearly reached her destination and doesn't need our kind of help, if you could call it that.

I steal a peek in the mirror and watch her curls bob in time with her determined march.  If I wasn't so mad at Joe, I'd thank him for giving me more time with her.  Not that we ever really spent time together.  My brothers and I watched her walk past our house on her way to her job at the golf course all the time.  They watched, maybe, but I salivated.   Someday I'd work up the nerve to ask her on a proper date, but today wasn't going to be that day, thanks to my obnoxious brother.

Lightning Crashes

This morning Mr. Ohboy was in the kitchen while the boys got ready for school.  I chose to hide in the bedroom, mainlining chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.  I tried to ignore their conversations as I hadn't stumbled my way to the coffee pot yet.  Then I heard my husband telling our children - the very same children who insist upon wearing noise-canceling headphones during rainstorms - about his grandfather who was struck by lightning on two separate occasions while sitting in a recliner in his study.

He clearly hadn't thought this one through.  The kids already practically burrow beneath our skin when they hear the slightest rumble of thunder.  If there is no longer safety indoors, thanks to Great-Grandpa Ohboy's magnetic legacy, I'm not sure of our next move.  Fall-out shelter?

"STOP!" I yell.  "DON'T YOU DARE TELL THEM THAT STORY!"  Mr. Ohboy can't hear me or he's become immune to the distinct frequency of my nagging.  Perhaps he can't hear me because I've deafened him over the years.  Whatever the reason, he finished his story (and the kids added their own gems about tornadoes ripping off your skin.  Boys!).

On Fridays I visit my grandparents and clean their house for them so they don't have to.  We chat a little as I work, and then talk more when we sit to eat lunch together.  Today I mentioned my family's desire to record some of their stories so we would be able to hold pieces of them long after they leave us.  My grandmother furrowed her eyebrow and declared that it sounded like a lot of work.  Besides, she and my grandpa remembered things differently.

Of course you do, Grandma.  You're married, after all.

Somehow conversation turned to my husband's grandfather, the human lightning rod, and then to my friend's mother who was struck by lightning while milking a cow (is that where fried cheese curds come from?).

"That happened to my mother," Grandma announced.

Before my grandmother came into the world, her mother miscarried another baby.  With no little one to feed, her chest became engorged to the point where fluid gathered in her legs.  They referred to this as "milk leg", and they believed the swelling in the legs was the milk running down and filling up the lower extremities.  My great-grandmother was advised to wear some kind of rubberized stockings, likely some sort of compression stocking, to help with the swelling.

A storm blew through soon afterward, and she ran outside to bring one of the cows into the shelter of the barn.  Lightning filled the air with electric charge and stung the ground at her toes.  Great-grandma's rubber socks saved her life.  In the years following, she would conceive and give birth to a fiery baby girl, my grandmother.

The more I think about the lightning strike, the compression stockings, the baby lost, the branches of the family tree that may have never sprouted, I am amazed.  And this is why we tell our tales - the good, the bad, the seemingly boring.  In the telling and retelling of our stories, we reveal the everyday tragedies and miracles that affect us all.

But, still, Mr. Ohboy probably needs to keep that whole lightning striking indoors thing under wraps.

The Earth Bleeds Red by Jackson Baer

Please stop by Facebook to support fellow author Jackson Paul Baer as he reveals the cover to his novel, The Earth Bleeds Red, which debuts next month. The following image is his spiffy new cover and a little bit more about his book.

Scott and Jessie are a couple in love. Ashley, their only daughter, is 17-years old and has vanished; leaving behind nothing but a pool of blood. Her strange disappearance is quickly thought to be a homicide. Her cozy, northwest town is stunned when police find the body of another girl at the bottom of the Willamette River. The eerie signature found on the girl links to a monster dubbed the Hail Mary Killer. While Scott searches for Ashley, the FBI feels convinced that she is the killer’s latest victim.

In spite of three other bodies with the same distinct marking, no one prepared themselves for the discovery in southern Oregon. Local hikers stumble upon a car in the mountain brush and a tattooing needle with an evil history surfaces inside. A cabin appears nearby with another gruesome discovery. Scott finds some solace in his friendship with Father Henry as he and Jessie try to salvage their marriage and move on beyond the loss of Ashley. The FBI finally catches a break when they unearth the dark past of the Hail Mary Killer’s family. What emerged in his basement is more terrifying than anyone could have possibly imagined. What happens to the Miller family and Father Henry will shake your soul and keep you reading till the last page.

Last Day On Earth

If it were my last day on earth I would dream under the stars.
I would lay down in the grass and let the sun warm my skin.
I would cherish each breath of air as it weaves through my hair.
I would sing along with the familiar melodies of the birds.

If it were my last day on earth I would lose my way in the trees.
I would splash and play in the dancing waters.
I would shift and slide amongst the soft grains of sand.
I would drench myself with the afternoon rain.

If it were my last day on earth I would wrap your arms around me.
I would bathe in the trickle of our falling tears.
I would wish you remember me fondly long after I go.
I would want you to know you made each day worth living.

When you think of me, with tears or laughter, know that I am thinking of you and sending love in the gentle ways I know how.

~~~

 Mariah, sweet girl, you deserve to be whole again.  Thank you for always being as kind as you looked.  Thank you for trusting me enough to be your vision and, sometimes, your protector.  We will miss your quiet spirit and the cautious way you would sneak up to me to get treats before any of the other horses could chase you away.  Give Moe a big, sloppy horse kiss for me, and run free together the way you never really could when you came to live with us.  

You are loved.  <3

~~~

Mariah galloped across the Rainbow Bridge today at 12:15pm. Rest in peace, Ry-Ry. </3

Wanted

I want to be somebody.
I want to make a difference.
I want to touch hearts.
I want to smile.
I want to make others smile.
I want to be good at something.
I want to be good for someone.
I want to inspire.
I want to be inspired.


What do you want?

Like Falling In Love

I'm currently in a holding pattern, waiting for beta-readers to finish up with my first book and get back to me with their comments.  Another writer confessed to me that the waiting period always makes her nervous.  It made me think.

As a writer, you spend thousands of hours pouring words onto a page or screen. Ideas are born, full of promise and excitement.  You grow and change with each character.  Together you encounter a full range of problems, from tiny bumps to impassable mountains.  When tears roll down their cheeks, your tears follow suit.  Heart in throat, you wait by their side as their last breath falls from still lips.  After 'The End', you discover that you've become someone richer in experience than the person you were before it all began.

To share that with others, especially others whose goal it is to point out your scars and imperfections, is frightening.  It is opening yourself--and your new friends--to attack, no matter how well-intentioned your attacker.  It is lowering your defenses in the hopes that the arrows will serve to build you up rather than fatally wound.  You make yourself vulnerable.  Vulnerability is unnatural for us.

In many ways, this feedback process is like falling in love.  It is delivering your beating heart on a platter and hoping it returns safely--that they love in return.  It is trusting that the other person has only the best intentions, only the purest motives.  It is the hope that they are skilled in architecture and demolish only what they must in order for us to rebuild stronger and more complete.

There is such great and awful responsibility in love and art.

Maybe you don't write and you find it difficult to relate to my illustration because of that.  That's okay.  I think it still applies to many of our passions, not only the crafting of sentences.  Do what you do with love, because of love.  Accept the help of others with love.  Extend your hand to others with truth and compassion.  

Making yourself vulnerable and opening your heart to others is scary.  Sometimes you'll bleed and wish you'd kept your shield tucked tight around your chest.  At other times, bringing others alongside you on the journey reveals unspeakable beauty.  The joy is nearly always worth the splinters along the way.

My Life In One Photo

Except that lady.  I have no clue who that lady is.

(Thanks Tim!)

Labels

Labels.

We are all our own collage of labels, definitions of the person we are, collected piece-by-piece over time as we travel our path.



Business owner.  Employee.  Artist.  Stay-at-home parent.  Between jobs.  Barely hanging on.    

Mom.  Dad.  Sister.  Brother. Aunt. Uncle. Grandparent.  Caretaker.  Zookeeper.  

Parent of an special child.  Survivor.  The one left behind.  

In love with a man.  In love with a woman.  Lonely.  Confused.  Misunderstood.  

Hero.  Drama king or queen.  Class clown.  Bookworm.

Believer.  Not.  Unsure what might be out there.  Searching.



What are your labels?  Do you wear them proudly, or do some of your labels make you feel ashamed?  Do you shout who you are to anyone who will listen, 24/7?  Or do you let people discover on their own?   Can you look upon the labels of others without scrunching up your nose?  

Where You Least Expect It

I want to update my status on Facebook to complain about my new dishwasher and the fact that it is doing the same thing that caused my old dishwasher to meet its end.  I want to complain because my kids piled in my bed while I was on the phone and now there is no room for me.

I can't.

People I love are struggling at this very moment with things much larger than my annoyances.  Their hearts are breaking.  Their hearts are stopping.  Who cares about the sand on my dishes?  Really?  I'm not sure I even care that much, except every dish I own is dirty and I haven't perfected my "making a cup out of a piece of paper" trick yet.  Still, I have dishes to complain about, and electricity and water, even though the combination doesn't seem to be working as flawlessly as I think it should.  Poor me.

This is such a broken world, home to unspeakable pain and struggle.  And yet, there is such beauty hidden in the oddest of places.  It's what I wish for the ones I love who are hurting, that beauty will find them where they least expect it.  For me, tonight, that will be singing along quietly to a mellow song as I hand-wash dishes for my family's breakfast tomorrow.

Breakfast with my wild, loud, quirky family.  I figure things don't get much more beautiful than that.

Advice To My Younger Self

Write the letter, if you must.  All 30 pages of it.  Pour the words from your heart like water from a pitcher.  Get it all out--every last drop--until you've said all you need to say.  Then destroy it.  I don't care how the letter meets its end.  Fire.  Paper shredder.  Teething puppy.  Computer trash can.  Whatever.

Don't you dare send that letter.  If you have a novella of angst and emotion pent up inside, sharing it all with that person isn't likely to change a thing.  It will, however, come back to haunt you like the gamble you took when scarfing down that grey-looking burrito from the gas station that one time.

Keep a journal, a diary, a blog instead, but be prepared to cringe when you look back.  You're constantly growing and changing as a person, gathering life experience and wisdom by the arm-loads.  What you fiercely believe now will probably be only a speck of what you hold to be true 10 or 20 years from now....  Don't be a bit surprised if you don't even recognize the person you used to be a decade or two down the road.

The world is so different now then it was when I was younger and figuring everything out.  I thank God that I was not born to this generation, where every racing, uncensored thought can be shared instantly.  I didn't need the extra help, finding my way in the most awkward way possible.  My younger family members are traveling these well-worn paths.  They are falling fast and hard in love and lashing out for offenses they won't remember when the sun rises tomorrow.  They are baring their souls on page and screen, words that can't be returned or wiped clean.

It's tough, this growing up.  It's hard to look back and know where you would have chosen differently.  It's even worse to have a liftetime witness.

Burn the letter.  You are more incredible--today, yesterday, 10 years ago--than you will ever know.  You don't need the letter to convince him, promise.

Falling In Love

I feel bad for those of you who don't fall in love every day.

Maybe I'm a sap, deep down inside.  It's always been this way.  Sometimes it is embarrassing, but usually I think it's one of my better traits.  As cynical and sarcastic as I might seem, people do matter to me.  Odds are, you're one of the people who matter.  And I hope that, even just a little, I have mattered to you.

~ Putting on gloves to make sure my best friend's baby doesn't fall on the floor.
~ Is it Mardi Gras?
~ Benchpressing three women and still not hitting the spot, except when it comes to pocket-dialing 9-1-1.
~ Can I get you a glass of water?
~ Peach tea--I don't drink tea, but you can try to convert me!--and, please, punch me in the stomach as soon as that contraction ends.
~ That was not a firm, warm hug.  What a load of....
~  Uhhhh, are you anywhere near a hospital?
~ I'm sorry, Jen.  You're just not strong enough.  Go get him from the lobby.  [reuniting a banished husband with a mom who needed every ounce of his strength.  To date, one of the most beautiful and exhausting experiences I've ever had]
~You're doing wonderfully.  Say hello to my lactation consultant friend.
~ Here, honey.  I just Googled this labor position.
~ Come sit down next to me... and... it's okay your water broke.  These weren't my good Crocs.
~ Blissful immediate skin-to-skin bonding instead of hours of isolation [true for several of my families].  Happy sigh!  My work here is done.
~ You've never met this woman before?  Nope.  Nice to meet you.  Did you want the vitamin K shot?
~ This is the spreadsheet I want you to fill out.  Do you have a finance degree, by any chance?  No?  Well....  Good luck.
~ The epitome of the perfect Bradley method family.  I wish I had a magic wand.
~ A family that became like my own.  Sorry about your sweater.
~ Kids, you're up just in time to meet your new brother.
~ Let your body move in whatever way it needs to.
~ I'm sorry I ate all of your hummus and you can see my sister's bra.  I made you this cute hat(?).... scarf.
~ The Jewish community places high value on sarcasm.  [Now I understand why I function so well within the Jewish community.]
~ Now that I've found you, I may never leave. Stupid GPS.
~ Sweet Virginia, and an even-sweeter family.
~ Happy anniversary to you.  It's not often I get invited to a romantic dinner for five.
~ Baby Moe.  Oh....  Baby Moe.
~ I recognize the toddler in the visitor lounge.  That can't be good....
~ Sifting a baby right out.  Mimosas and chocolate chip pancakes for all!
~ Advocating so well for yourself that you nearly shoot the eyebrows off of your Ghandi-like midwife.
~ Like a Boss.
~ Eating Snickerdoodle bars with your husband even though you are fasting.  I'm glad you are my friend and will forgive me when all is said and done.  <3
~ They keep telling me my baby is smart, and yet she wants to stay breech.  Is she smart or isn't she?  (It turns out, she was smart and so were they).  Oversharers = my peeps.
~Fist-bump between pushes.... and ice cream and chocolate sauce solves everything.

~ You were never broken.  (And I greatly appreciate anyone who giggles at a good "balls" joke.)

~ Seven diapers in one hour is no joke.

~ You did Fantasti*con.... and I'm not just saying that to be creepy.  :-)

There are more moments than time and words to share, but I add to this rich mosaic one piece at a time.  It may be nonsense or silly to you, but to me, it is the reason I do what I do.  It is why I return the e-mails, make the calls, drive the miles, sip the lattes, and wedge myself into impossible pretzels in the corner of that birthing room.  Because I meet and fall in love with hopeful people all the time.

Plan B

Hours ago I watched a baby slide into this bright world to the shelter of loving arms.  A family's joy and wonder was renewed with the cry of life.  For me, it was an evening of learning more about new friends, laughing together until baby was near and undeniable.  Walking from the hospital with a grin--a nice reminder of how rewarding and powerful it can be as a birth worker.

At the same time, I know my days as a doula are numbered....  Or, at least, my days as a semi-busy doula are.  The on-call lifestyle is difficult on families, bodies, and just about everything else.  This week it is more apparent to me after a night spent away from home and the subsequent day lounging around the house required to recharge my energy.  

I admitted it on the phone to one of my sisters this morning.  My sister, in all seriousness, replied, "You need to write."

Where has she been hiding for the past year-and-a-half?  Or, maybe, where have I been hiding for the past year-and-a-half?

In her defense, she does not waste much time on the Internet, so she has missed my million-and-one Facebook statuses/blog posts about my books.  I'm sure she believed she was shedding light on something I'd been passing over all this time.  At the very least, it made me laugh to myself several times throughout my morning.

Really?  You think I should write?  Eureka!

Make-up writing was my only weekend plan (besides make-up sleeping), but a simple text message looks like it may throw a wrench in those plans.  Books never text with emergencies, and books can be written accompanied by a nice meal....  But books, as wonderful as they are, don't hug you at the end of the day with appreciation for the minuscule role you play in their life.

Farewell

I'm freshly-back from the last installment of the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn Part 2.  And I've got to say, I'm so conflicted.  Because so many have not yet seen the movie yet, I am not going to comment on specifics other than:  (a) why do I have to pick a "Team"?  I'm not that picky, and pretty much everyone on the cast is gorgeous; and (b) it was fan-flipping-tastic.  Now for a few random thoughts in no particular order....

I hate endings.  I want to grow old with these familiar friends.  Eventually Rob Pattinson will lose all of his hair and Taylor Lautner will pack on 80 pounds, so maybe it's better to remember them this way.  Still, I couldn't help feeling sad when the end credits rolled and the official good-byes (at least for now) were said.

When I'm feeling particularly low, I flip on New Moon, the second film in the saga.  I refer to it as my "comfort movie".  Some people have comfort food (okay, I have that, too) or a hideaway.  Me, I've got a somewhat-cheesy, totally depressing, co-dependent movie.  This goes back to a pivotal winter when this movie happened to be in the theaters.  Everything seemed to be changing, and the movie was so melancholy that it just fit.  I saw it eight times in the theater.  Maybe that's pathetic, but I am still here to tell the tale, and I am only a teensy bit more cynical about life in general.  So, well done, New Moon.

More than anything, it makes me long for a piece of what these literary series have done, and done so well:  Knitting together a community of dreamers.  When we are moved to dream, to imagine, we remember that we are surrounded by wonder.  Life is full of infinite possibilities, our own plot to advance and thicken.  I pray that someday I will stumble across the characters who will inspire others to create, to laugh, and to love.

Farewell, Twilight.  You weren't perfect, by any stretch of the word, but you reminded me that I still have stories left to tell.  I'm forever grateful.

He Is

He is...

Spindly legs.

They say he will learn to put each one in proper place as he grows.

They were wrong.



He is...

A velvet nose.

He is sniffing, touching, testing, mouthing all the world has to offer.

And even some things it does not.



He is...

The perfect heart

Child-like, forgiving, trusting, loyal to the final flicker of life.

And loyal even yet.


****

I have been looking at baby pictures of some friends and recent clients.  I am led to flip back through some of my older Facebook photos, where little Ohboy's age could be counted in weeks and months rather than years.  His smile is the same in those photos, only now it is deepened with words and experience.

It makes me wonder about my Moe-Moe.  I've never seen him as a foal, but I imagine him much the same:  Gangly and awkward, hungry and inquisitive.  The idea of my beloved guy as a beloved little guy brings happy tears to my eyes.  What a character I know he was.  These things seldom change, even with age.

Miss you, as always, Moe.  Where you are, a big piece of my heart has followed.

Not Forgotten

My dear human friend,

A door called death has closed between us for the moment.

But could a little thing like that

break the bond of love and understanding between us,

Who have been so close? Of course not. 

Having left behind the body which no longer serves me,

I can be with you always and everywhere;

On long delicious walks, at quiet times, and lively times,

Alone, among friends new and old. 

Let my excitement with life still brighten your days.

As long as there is a place in your heart which is the shape of me,

I will be with you.

One day you too will come through the door,

And we will be together in glorious ways we have yet to understand.
 

--Alexandra Day