Crossing the Rainbow Bridge (Pt. 4)
Memories of a four-legged friend of a different variety.
Catch up with other editions of our pet grief series: Part I, Part II, Part III.
I don’t know a heck of a lot about horses, but learned that there is a strong bond between the animal and their rider. It’s a relationship built on trust and a bit of psychological bridge-building between human and animal.
My friend Holly Hartigan grew up riding on a farm and I asked if she would consider writing about the grief she felt when her horse, Willow, died. She generously obliged, but only she could incorporate footnotes in the same manner that I do throughout Dirt Nap editions.1
Holly McIntyre Hartigan
My 9-year-old son — who has a penchant for asking unexpected, probing questions — dropped this one on me while we were out for ice cream on a recent sunny Sunday: What was the most tragic thing to ever happen to you?
Jesus, kid. Way to kill the vibe.2
But it got me thinking.
Most tragic for me? My dad died when I was pregnant with my youngest son. They never got to meet. My college boyfriend died unexpectedly in his apartment. And my horse, Willow.
Wait, a horse?
I’ve lost more people. Real people. The paternal grandparents who died when I was young enough that I didn’t get to know them. The maternal grandmother who was kind and funny and creative, and lost it all in a long descent due to Alzheimer’s.
Why is my brain putting an animal on the list?
It seems completely illogical. But also totally normal?
Willow was majestic.
She was a Percheron-Quarter Horse cross, dapple gray, with a broad chest and intelligent eyes. We showed together in 4-H when I was a teen.
Yes, we showed together. Not I showed her. Together. We were a team. She did as much of the work as I did.
I got her when I was 14, and we took lessons, practiced, and spent tons of time together. We became a better horse and rider duo over the years.
She was smart and opinionated and didn’t always do what I asked her to do. She challenged me. We were a perfect match.
Then I went off to college and moved away, got married and had our first kid. Meanwhile, she stayed at my parents’ farm, enjoying several years of peaceful retirement.
I visited, sometimes hopping on for a short trail ride. She was a childhood friend I’d joyfully reunite with a few times a year.
She was healthy and content, but as she neared her 30th birthday (a ripe old age for a horse), arthritis finally caught up to her.
“I think it’s time to put her down,” my mother tearfully told me one Thanksgiving when we were home for a visit.
She was hurting. Standing, walking. It all hurt. That’s often how horses go, with their big bodies and delicate legs.
I sobbed into her mane that day, saying goodbye.
My mom had the veterinarian come a few days later. My parents took care of it all.
One hundred miles away, I sat in my office and sobbed some more. I’m tearing up now, remembering it.
My grandfather died soon after Willow died. He was also an opinionated character whom I loved, who lived a very healthy retirement and passed away at a ripe old age.
I was sad, but I didn’t sob into his mane.3 Why did it feel like less of a tragedy?
I think a lot of it comes down to the simplicity and depth of the relationship. It was me and her, her and me. She was mine. Her life was inextricably entwined with mine.
Our relationship was uncomplicated, and that relationship had started when I was a hormonal teen. In the midst of the most angst-filled years of my life, I had this solid, steady partnership with a horse.
As long as I kept showing up with a stash of gingersnap cookies4 in my pocket, she’d show up for me, rock solid.
We can’t rank our tragedies. It’s silly to bring such logic to heartbreak.
We are the messy sum of our relationships and experiences. I picture it as threads weaving haphazardly through fabric, some short, some long, some kinda ugly and falling apart, some bright and beautiful.
Willow was one of those bright and beautiful threads — alongside my people. Not behind them. Not less than. A solid, strong piece of the whole.
Final Thoughts on Finality
No philosophers so thoroughly comprehend us as dogs and horses.
—Herman Melville
Dirt Nap is the Substack newsletter about death, grief and dying that is written and edited by Jared Paventi. It’s published every Friday morning. Dirt Nap is free and we simply ask that you subscribe and/or share with others.
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I obviously agreed. Footnotes are awesome.
I told him he’s gotta learn to read the room and to ask again on a less sunny day.
I could have. He had a head full of lustrous hair.
One of my favorite Willow stories: She once ate a muffin wrapper. I walked down to the barn one day, eating an apple muffin. I stopped to say hi to her over the fence. She slurped the wrapper up right out of my hand. She was fine.
A wonderful, moving story -- this is Holly at her best.