Nube: The Final Chapter

Over the next thirteen years of retirement, Nube napped with friends, ate well, and stood quietly for the farrier. I always knew some undiagnosable thing wasn’t right inside him, but there were more good days than bad. He didn’t worry, and neither did I. We both tried that, and it didn’t work.

Equine pros need photos for business promotion. It’s my least favorite thing. I have flinched in front of cameras enough to know I look better if a horse is in the shot. So, this tall, elegant Iberian became my Vanna White, my fancy spokesmodel. That’s him in my bio sheets and clinic promotions. That’s him on three of my book covers, including my first book, although the story featured a different horse. Each week, I post a meme on social media; a quote of mine superimposed on a photo of a gray horse with a black background. Those are all him. I suppose, in a way, Nube became my face.

Every horse story ends the same way. The date and time might be a surprise, but there is nothing unexpected about losing a horse. I’m not looking for sympathy or condolences, just to finish Nube’s story.

It was a brisk January day. I fed the hay mid-morning and planned to meet a friend for lunch. I took one more walk through the barn, even though I had been out 20 minutes before. Nube was on the ground drenched in sweat. I raced to the house and filled a syringe with bentonite pro-bios clay, although it didn’t look like colic. Colic wasn’t this painful.

No vets were available. Nube alternated between bolting, thrashing, and collapsing for the next four hours. Getting him into the trailer wasn’t an option. I desperately thought of extreme options, just to stop his pain. Finally, a vet I knew from working with a rescue years before agreed to come. Nube’s condition was beyond obvious, but she needed me to say it. So, I did.

She euthanized Nube quickly. I thanked her, overpaid her, and went back to my barn. The clay was there on his tongue. He hadn’t swallowed or even released his jaw in those hours. I’ve never seen a more brutal death.

All I could feel was relief that he was out of pain. The rest of my herd had watched with concern when he was alive but paid no attention to Nube now that he was still. It’s a bittersweet experience when the last thing I would ever want becomes the thing Nube needed the most.

I had an online class to teach an hour later, so I washed my face and put clean clothes on. The class went smoothly. Does that make me sound callous? Think of it as a commercial break. I needed a distraction and my sadness certainly wasn’t going anywhere.

After class, I called the dead animal removal woman and set a pickup time the next day. The herd got a little extra dinner. I stood around and prayed for us all, in the odd way I do. My heart ached, but it was only one afternoon in the amazing span of Nube’s twenty years. I would not let something as ordinary as death cast a shadow over his life.

They say the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They have never been a fit for me. After a day like this one, denial was impossible, and I could never be angry at Nube. Bargaining is the struggle to find meaning. I’ve been around long enough to know life unfolds the way it will and fighting it doesn’t work. Bargaining everything you own to find an available vet might be closer to the question.

Depression? I’ve had so much loss in my life that a low-level depression might be there, but if so, it’s married to acceptance. My memories are like a comfortable sofa. I half enjoy resting there, passing time with my loved ones and a box of tissues. But I’m pragmatic. I know there are chores to do.

One of my favorite parts of grieving is missing from that list. No significant loss is complete without some dark humor. Laughter is a human calming signal. It helps us breathe, and it clears the air. It’s a way to move when inertia suggests I don’t. And there is something so delightfully morbid about a bad joke at a touchy time.

It didn’t take long for the obvious to arise. Whose bright idea was it to have a spokesmodel? My entire ghost herd snorted and stomped their hooves just at the edge of my eye. It was the best joke any of them had played on me.

Photos of Nube were plastered everywhere. I wasn’t expecting to forget him, but this was gratuitous. Every other minute on my computer, doing my paperwork, planning courses at the Barn School, updating social media. “Not you again!” I’d cackle, foolishly underestimating what a big part of my work Nube had always been. And then I cried and laughed and cried. I sang the chorus of that great Dan Hicks favorite, How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away and blew my nose until my eyes swelled shut. The only people who think you can get over losing a horse are people who have never had one, but that’s no reason to give sadness the upper hand. Loss is also as ordinary as death. And as graceless.

Nube died almost two years ago. A humble reminder that doing my best doesn’t mean I rule the day. Nube is still my face. Not just to the world, but in the mirror. He was kinder than me, more intelligent than me, and probably an all-around better human than me. I try to live up to his memory.

 

Someone else

 

We think we know the horse, but we never can.

Instead, we contrive a fantasy that we will to be true.

Or we give up and love without knowing them.

We go by feel. It starts with a hand on their neck,

fingers raking their mane, but soon we feel them

woven deep in our guts.

Stalking them like love prey, while marveling at their majesty.

We survey the landscape of their lives

from the frisky breath of a foal to that final cooling stillness.

 

My gelding is dead.

I want to be contained in the space he vacated,

to take in the air spent from his lungs.

 

Push my forehead against a fence post to feel its touch.

The air has an alcohol sting, freezing my lungs,

Stifling my gasp. Clench my arms tight because

there is no floor, no wall, no warm place to rest my hand.

 

My gelding was a mystery of his own. Never mine,

but there were perfect moments I stood at his shoulder.

Whole moments I was his equal.

 

Tomorrow, I become someone else.

.

…

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