Grab a box of tissues.

Gairab
It only took about 15 seconds, but the whole scene played in slow motion as I watched. Down, up, down, up, down, up and finally, mercifully, down again. My heart and mind were screaming as I delicately ran across the railroad trestle towards my horse- even though no sound came out of my mouth. He was twisted, broken. Legs in positions that nature never intended. I sat down next to his head and gently stroked his head and neck. It was then that I looked up at my friend Gwen and choked out a cry "I've killed my horse!". I looked down at Gairab, my beloved 19 year old Arabian. He had been a gift to myself when my ex-husband finally left and the abuse had stopped.

No more would I stand in his stall and cry into his mane while he consoled me just through his mere presence. No more would I stroke his velvety soft muzzle as I leaned my head against his and stand eye to eye, breath matching breath. No more lazy summer afternoons when I would doze on his back while he grazed in the pasture. Never again would I fall off his back and have him come running back to get me......all because of a stupid mistake, because he fell through a railroad trestle on an unfamiliar trail. I had dismounted to see if it was safe to cross, Gairab was closer behind than I anticipated and he spooked when we got close to the trestle and he started running across it.....but never made it to the other side....

Now Gairab lay still in the chilly February air. He strained his eyes to get a glimpse of me, so I moved closer to him, closer to his line of sight. I don't know exactly when I started crying, but the tears were blurring my vision as I very, very gently lifted his head to remove the metal bit from his mouth. There was a light pink froth slowly forming and even though he had to be in the most unthinkable pain, I had to alleviate some of it, I had to redeem myself in some way. So I removed his bit. Such a tiny gesture with the grandest of meaning.

A rider came by and I cried out "Do you have a gun?!", he rode off to get help. I'm not sure how long I lay there on Gairab's neck, stroking him, making sure he didn't try and get up again and hurt himself even more.....watching the rocks below us turn crimson with his blood. My stomach turned as I looked at the mutilated body of my beautiful, elegant, noble horse. One rear leg was broken in multiple places and hung down between the railroad ties, the other rear leg laid out useless behind him. A front hoof was caught in the railroad track and bent his front leg at a sickening angle. Pieces of skin and hair clung to the railroad ties behind him like a grisly Hansel and Gretel trail, bearing witness to the horror he had just endured. I sobbed until my lungs hurt. Then I laid on his neck again. Breathing him in, his sweet horsey smell mixed with sweat and blood. I knew I would never see him stand again, I would never lay in the sun in his pasture while he grazed around me...and my heart couldn't bear it. I started to sob again.

A man came and gently started to try and pull me off of Gairab so they could "take care" of him. I screamed and held tight. My Gairab. I couldn't let him leave this world so brutally!
My mind wandered back to only days before when we were riding in the woods and came across a small herd of deer, as we so often did. Off we went to chase them across the meadows, then stop and sit and just.....exist. Together.

I was being pulled away again, this time with more force. I felt like a child being wrenched from its mother and I watched in horror as his life kept dripping out of him and into the water below. I was bundled into a car and driven back to the barn. The car had stopped and there it was. The gunshot. Then another. My Gairab was gone. And so was a piece of my soul.

A blanket of yellow roses covered his grave. Now, every Feb 20th I put a yellow rose on the trestle where he died, ask for forgiveness, and pray that he is in a better place. I sit and remember the horror of that day in 2000 and I sob again; after 4 years you think the pain will subside. It doesn't. It will never be erased from my memory and I will never forget my faithful Gairab.

We will meet again and as the old Bedouin proverb says

"My treasures do not chink or glitter; they gleam in the sun and neigh in the night".

Good night, sweet Gairab.