One Year Later, “The Change”

One year has already passed since I lost Finny. Everyone said, “Give it time.”

I don’t know how I feel about this any more. Some days I feel empty to any feelings. Some days, I can still cry. A few friends emailed me this week to see if I needed to talk, but that is one thing I can’t do this week. I do know that I can’t talk about Finny. Not this week.

I’ve realized many things over the last year. It was ok to be sad for a very long time. It’s ok to continue to be sad. It was ok to be angry, guilty, depressed, lonely. Those feelings have subsided and have been replaced with an acceptance and an emptiness.

It was also ok to move on. Enjoy another horse. Go back to trail riding and competing. It was ok to continue on with what I love. And it was ok not to feel guilty.

That was the hardest thing to accomplish this year. The guilt hung on like a splinter under the nail. It would throb and hurt some days. I wouldn’t feel it for a few days. Then I would do something and hurt the nail again, and the pain would be awful. More awful than it had been before. But eventually, the splinter is gone, so was the guilt.

A peace is settling into me. I didn’t feel it until today (the 9th), the day before the anniversary date that I probably will never forget. The peace might be coming from the fact that I’m driving through the Pennsylvania hills, back home for my parent’s 65th Anniversary party. As I look out the car windows, and see the changing colors, I feel a change in me. Just as the seasons come and go, and just as the trees change into majestic colors, the colors deepen into a brown, die, and fall off the trees. There is always the hope, no, more than hope, there is the reality that there will be color again.

Some things are always there. The trees are always here. The fall colors in western PA are always here. Always breathtaking beautiful. There is always a change.

There will always be horses. There will always be death. There will always be a breathtaking beautiful horse. There will always be a change.

In the last year, I have come to accept that. I don’t like death. No one does. But now I can look forward to the change. I can start to feel the change that Finny had in my life. He has made me see that every horse is special.

Just like the leaves are becoming more colorful as I travel north, so are the changes in my soul changing. I love these hills. I love what the hills do for me. I love horses. I love what horses do for me.

I just told my husband, Tom, that even though we have seen these hills and changing colors for our first 22 years that we lived here and went to college, and then for the next 6 years while we lived in PA and Michigan, it seems like we have never seen these colors before. They are so bright. I am struck by this beautiful scenery.

Having Finny in my life feels like that. I feel like I didn’t have a special horse in my life. I just rode. Then, as I look around me, now I see all the special horses. Now, I remember the fall colors that I grew up in, and now I see the beauty that was inside Finny.

Thank you, God, for my time with Finny. Thank you for putting him in my life. One of the saddest poems I read a year ago, was that You needed my horse for the angels to ride. I cried so hard when I read that. Now that thought brings a smile to my face. Finny has the life that he deserves. He has the kindest riders riding him now. And he is looking down at me while I’m driving through these beautiful hills, sharing the color and beauty of the day with me.

Until I can ride you in Heaven, my Friend. I will always love you, your gorgeous black coat and face with the large white blaze, your fabulous lope, your heart.

I’m home and now, in my heart, I know that you are too. Have a fantastic run today among the clouds. I hope you think about me as much as I think about you.