Bring4th

I have just had the worst morning. Let me get this off my chest the terrible thing I have done (or rather, not done).

I was awoken by my parents, "The horses are out."
See, I've been blessed with a life on a 5 acre property. On one half of this property is a fenced-off paddock, which my parents rent to horse owners. Yesterday afternoon, I had opened the gate to this paddock in order to wheelbarrow my beloved ducks to their sleeping area near a small dam. Unfortunately, I left the gate open and forgot to close it again on the way out of the paddock. Sensing greener grass, the two horses in the paddock decided to escape and explore when the sun came up the next morning. Now, this has happened before and every time the horses seemed to get the hint that they weren't allowed out, and promptly made their way back in with a little human encouragement.

Today would not be such a day. The horses seemed frisky, and were running around my yard. After a few minutes I was able to guide them back towards the gate. The first and younger horse ran at high speed through the gate and back into the paddock. the second  horse, older and half-blind, followed. Only that, instead of running through the gate, it charged at high speed into the WIRE FENCE! You can imagine the carnage. The horse's legs were cut up and the fence was destroyed. The horse made it a few meters into the paddock before collapsing onto its side and laying there in shock. I watched all this with the most dreadful feeling of calm acceptance. Now at first, regardless of how terrible the situation appeared, I clung to the hope that after a brief period of recovery, the horse would get up and wander off. My hope was not fulfilled.

The next hour (I cant really remember though) consisted of me kneeling down besides the shaking, sweating beast and attempting to calm it while my mum called all the relevant persons (The horse owner and vet). Tragically, the horse would attempt to get up every few minutes, only to flail its legs and fall back down in pain. The vet came and diagnosed the horse as having severely damaged its old and fragile back during the initial chaos of the fence collision. It was gonna have to be written off, to use a poor term for a living creature. Tragic and hopeless as the situation was, it was only going to get worse when the owner of the horse arrived.

I don't know how much experience you have with horse owners, but let me tell you they treat these creatures like their own dear children. When D arrived, I witnessed what to this day has to be the single most heart-breaking moment I have ever witnessed. I looked up from my task to see D had arrived, and managed to utter an awkward "good morning" before she dropped to her knees and began sobbing over the mangled beast's body. Note at this point that the horse was still alive. God knows no sorrow like a mother cradling her prematurely destroyed child. D's husband had arrived as well and began the questioning. "How had this happened!?". I confessed it was basically my fault. You could sense the fury in man's eyes, and he wandered off to contemplate in solitude what he should do next. From here was a long time of just standing and watching this poor woman weep and comfort her childl until the vet administered the injection and its soul went on to greater things.

Somehow or rather, no one got angry at me. In a way this makes it all the worse. My carelessness had led to this tragedy and now everyone was prepared to let me off easy, even D's husband. I apologised sincerely and stood contemplating the hefty corpse. The owners then called a bobcat hire for the burial and I went inside to shower. I'd been outside in the cold and wet and mosquitoes for three hours now with only a cup of tea. It was only when I got into the shower that the emotions of the situation really hit me, having been quite dissociated from the situation before. I sobbed and sobbed and feel to my knees as the hot water poured over me, cursing myself for letting it happen and cursing myself again for not being able to do anything at all to amend the situation. They wouldn't even let me pay for the euthanasia. The worst part? I was already laughing about the situation in my mind (while simultaneously sobbing on the physical plane), and imagining the great story it would become for my friends and the members of this forum. How could my psyche be so fractured that I wasn't able to give myself 100% to the grief which needed to be felt, and which my actions had caused? Interestingly, this blockage in emotion could be (and still can be) felt as a sharp tension running from my heart up the left side of my neck, each attempted sob exacerbating the tension.

In closing, thanks for letting me share this catalytic experience, and remember that you can never be too careful in this precious and fragile life we share. What gates have you forgotten to close recently? Peace be with you, and also with me, and the soul of that tragic beast.

If anyone has similar traumatic stories they could share and which I could relate to that would also be appreciated.

Death is one of the greatest mysteries that we are faced with here on this planet and the unknown nature of it make it one of the most difficult things to fathom and to face. I think that it is even harder when you feel personally involved. I don't think your reaction after the fact is that unusual. You are probably still in some degree of shock over the reality of the situation and sometimes humour is the best relief we have towards dealing with our grief. There will be time for tears.

Last year I helped to bury a friend of mine. There is little more visceral of a feeling than shoveling dirt in to a grave.

A couple years ago I was in another city and was walking home across the city late at night (it's a small town) and it was quite quiet. I was walking along this stretch of road that curves and has the forest on one side and the mill on the other. As I was coming down the road I saw a lady had pulled over and was out of her car. There was a deer lying on the road with blood all around it, clearly struggling but still breathing. The lady had stopped because she saw the deer, she wasn't the one who hit it, which meant whoever did had simply left. In this town it's not uncommon at all, deer are plentiful in the area, however it was painful to watch the deer struggle. It couldn't get up and it was bleating in pain. I tried to comfort it without getting too close and radiated all the Reiki I could muster.

A little while passed and a cop car pulled up. The cop got out of the car and looked over the deer briefly. Then he told me to step back and he pulled out his gun and shot the deer twice in the neck. He then unceremoniously dragged the body to the side of the road, and that was that. I am infuriated. I left quickly and was full of rage at how casual, how careless he had been towards this creature. I'm sure it's normal for the folks around the town and the cops to deal with, but it just hurt to realize how 'normal' it is to be indifferent towards death and to want to ignore the realities of it. I don't know if that cop ever grieved, but I did. I called to the spirit of the deer and gave to it all the light I could and wished for it a better life, that in its future incarnations it might teach humans a better way. To teach us its grace.

No one can tell when exactly the time will come but when it does we can only accept it for what it is. You did not kill the horse, you were just there when the fates called it to its end. It also could have happened that the horse chose to run any other way. It takes a certain alignment of events to deliver those of this world in birth and by that same notion each circumstance of death arises out of a unique alignment.

Aion your post was soothing to the soul. Thanks brother. I've seen a lot of your posts while lurking before I made an account and they're all some variation of interesting and inspiring.

I'm not so upset anymore. It was good to write down the experience and share it. All the friends I'd been pushing away lately just so happened to converge on me today by chance and cheer me up. We decided we're going to plant a big mango tree on the grave to turn this tragedy into some tasty fruit, if the owner is okay with that.

Nice to see you participating now then. Thanks.

I will give my prayers to the spirit of the horse and add light to its flight to the other side of itself.

Mangos are da bomb.

I had a feeling after that experience with the deer that one day I shall meet that spirit as a human and we will recognize eachother.

You can blame yourself but nobody blames you it seems.

You didn't kill anything, this was all a tragic accident, perhaps the horse on a deeper level was just ready for the next experience. We can't explain the reasoning for these things, only that there IS a reason.

That you hurt so much should tell you how much you care, how little you meant for this to happen, how guilty you feel that it did.

Forgive yourself.  That horse doesn't blame you, only you do.  You all did what you could and I think that horse appreciates the tenderness of caring you all showed it.

Focus on the love surrounding the situation, you did the best you could, and no one is blaming you.  At least, not here.

Thanks C_A,
everyone's been so positive about this horse catastrophe.

As I came to conclude, "You can lead a horse to a fence, but you can't make it charge through the fence and kill itself."

Edit: wrote wrong name lol...

We try to be positive.

But we're human, you know how that goes