My grandfather was a planter during the last days when cotton was king in the lower South. He owned a mercantile store filled with things you see in museums and antique stores, but he also took trips by train to Texas to buy horses he then shipped back to South Carolina to train and sell. My Mom always laughed that she’d named me right to name me after him since I seem to have his “natural way” with animals. I really consider my first baby to be my first horse, Sean. He was a black quarter-horse with one white stocking and a white blaze; a gift from an aunt three days before he was born. We were more than “owner and horse”. I don’t know how to describe the connection. I have Indian blood, though you can’t tell it to look at me and maybe it’s that part of me that “communes” with Nature so well. Sean trusted me enough to do whatever I asked of him, and sometimes it seemed he had radar where my wants were concerned. Then again, I trusted this huge animal not to hurt me and he obviously went out of his way to try not to.
I trained him myself the way I was told to: very easily and slowly, one non-traumatic step at a time over months. Then I sent him to Blanchard Poole, one of the finest “cowboys” you could ever meet. Blanchard & his wife Debbie became good friends during those two months. They said Sean was a blast to work with because the work was essentially done and Sean had such an easy way of wanting to learn whatever you asked of him. He came home knowing tricks that I’d only seen Alsatians do.
When I went off to college, I began to look for places to board him. Partying was priority and what was the hurry? I never expected the call that told me Sean was dead. He was diagnosed with Brucellosis. His death was harsh and brutal, he grew weaker & weaker until he simply couldn’t get up. They didn’t tell me he was sick until he was already gone, and I never forgave myself for leaving him behind. After spending every day with me for hours morning and night, he must have thought I’d abandoned him forever. It’s the one fault I find with animals; you can’t explain things to them like a sudden absence. You’re simply gone and they can’t fathom why. They can only “know” in feelings. Sean must have waited for me to appear each morning, to return each evening, like I always had, until he gave up.
Sometimes I “visit” Sean in my sleep. Mainly it’s when life is stressful for some reason and my spirit needs a rest. Last night I spent my dreamtime with Sean, going into the cold of an early morning in winter to break the ice on his water, to feed him the sweet smelling oats and to pull off clean smelling, green hay from a new bale. The simple pleasure of cleaning his stall while he ate. The steady rhythmic crunching of his contented chewing. It’s almost comical. Then to ride. To feel the cold north wind in my hair and the power of this beautiful, sweet baby gathering his muscles and moving beneath me in a oneness of body and spirit you might feel with a lover on the rarest occasions. To cool him down, to curry him out, brush him, clean his hooves and share his breath. To watch him running in the pasture with the pure delight of being alive, to put him in his stall at night knowing he’s safe. To pat him a loving goodbye and hear the soft whinny as you walk away.
They say you have only one “special” horse in your lifetime. It’s like saying you only have one true love in your life. I don’t believe it’s true. I’ve fallen in love twice. But then again it is true, though I’ve owned and cared about other horses, I’ve never had that special relationship with another horse since my first one. Here’s to Sean who died in October 1971.
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