Hope Rising (12 page)

Suddenly, it was as if someone had thrown a brick out of heaven. It landed squarely on top of my head. I knew exactly what I had to do.

Harry would never see this colt again. This was a moment he desperately needed to witness. He needed to see the circle completed. To know that young Tal would indeed carry on his torch, it was essential for him to see his granddaughter on Tal’s back. I jogged across the yard to the tack room to collect a saddle and bridle. “Today is the day!” I declared, even though I knew that Tal had scarcely been used to a halter. Certainly he had never seen a saddle.

I carried the tack into the center of the round pen and allowed the colt to investigate the strange new items. Just like his namesake, Harry, in the face of the unknown, Tal was courageous. He seemed to understand how important
this was. He was so kind and so willing. In a process that takes some horses weeks, Tal accepted the saddle and bridle in less than half an hour and was moving in a relaxed manner.

As utterly ridiculous as it seemed, I knew this was the right thing to do.
Lord, this is Your idea—make it become what it needs to be
, I prayed. We lifted Harry’s five-year-old granddaughter into the saddle. With her helmet in place and Mom and Dad on either side, we all stood ready for this first ride.

First one step, then another. I led Tal in a wide circle. The colt was totally at ease. He made lap after lap, and Olivia waved at her grandpa every time we passed the gate where Harry stood. I could see his eyes brimming with tears.

Tal seemed to understand what needed to happen. I’m sure that on one of our jubilant, waving circles he winked at Harry as he went by the gate—just to let him know that he knew what his name meant, and that the torch had truly been passed.

After many hugs, kisses, and carrots, we put Tal—the young “Harry Leslie”—away, returning him to a life where his only concerns were when to nap and who to play with next. His formal training would not come for another year. But I believe his life’s calling was completed in that single day.

I heard later that when the family drove home, the car was filled with excited chatter, everyone talking at once about what they had all just witnessed.

As for Harry himself, he watched the farmland blur past the windows and was heard to softly repeat several times, “It was a red letter day. A red letter day.…” When
the chatter around him subsided, Harry said reflectively, “I have had only three red letter days in my life. Today was one of them.”

A fact more certain than our life is our death—it comes to us all. It is within our life now while we live that we must prepare the gifts, the baton that we will pass on. What is worthy to be passed on? What is not? Which are we spending the most time on?

Little things do count. I doubt that when David and Petra generously bought the salvation of a desperate colt, they realized they were freeing the hearts of two captives—a young dying horse and an old dying man. Who can know the path that kindness may travel?

What were Harry Leslie’s two other red letter days? We never knew. But who could have known the third would come dressed in three white socks and a star on his forehead?

The Silent Meeting
 

T
HE BEAUTIFUL
spring day was already blooming with possibilities. A midmorning breeze carried with it the light sage fragrance of the high desert. It felt like perfumed satin on my arms and face.

I had arranged for an informal meeting at the ranch with the leaders of some of our community service groups. We decided to hold it upstairs in our unfinished barn, where there were no walls or roof to separate us from the outdoors.

During our meeting, several vanloads of kids arrived. They were with an organization that helps meet the needs of children from extremely low-income homes. Although I had seen many of these youngsters before, I noticed a few new faces in the crowd. Despite the meeting in progress, five of the junior-high girls crept up the barn stairs. They surrounded me; two sat on each side of my bench seat, while the fifth girl sat cross-legged on the floor between my knees.

I greeted each girl with a silent touch as the meeting went on over their heads. The girl on the floor, resting her head on my knee, played with the laces of my boots. I began to rub her head and finger-comb her hair.

The girl on my far right was a child I hadn’t seen
before. She had brown hair and dark eyes set in an exotic mocha toned face. Even in her disheveled state, she was a stunning beauty. With intense, intelligent eyes she watched my every move like a bird of prey. Her eyes traveled from my fingers, which were now methodically braiding hair, to my face, and back to my hands again.

I finished braiding the seated girl’s hair. Without taking my eyes off the man who was addressing the meeting, I leaned forward and whispered to the girl to hold the end of her braid while she went to the tack room to find a couple of rubber bands.

She stood quietly, careful to stay low so that she wouldn’t cause a disturbance. The instant her foot left the space between my boots, the girl on my left jumped down into her place. I began to finger-comb, as best as I could, her wild tousle of blond hair.

The scrutiny from the girl on my right continued uninterrupted. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her gaze on my face. Then her eyes dropped back down to my hands, watching hungrily as I wove the blond girl’s hair into an elegant queen’s crown braid.

The little blonde, inspecting her coiffure with her hands, followed the first girl out of the loft. Like the falling of a domino, the child on my immediate right quickly fell into place. She had long, dark hair that hung in filthy clumps around her small head.
Oh well
, I thought,
hands can be washed
. I plunged in, separating her oily locks, and noticed that my little coffee-colored spy was now including the newly vacated space between us in her searching gaze.

The next time she looked at my face, I turned and smiled directly at her. Her black eyebrows drew together,
as though she were trying to understand a foreign language. Still smiling, I returned to the greasy braid growing in my hands.

Now she wasn’t looking at my face or hands at all. She studied only the empty space on the bench between us. I could feel tension rising like a static charge—a tension brought on by the immense conflict building within her heart. Anxiety produced an adrenaline flush that made her skin glow auburn, like a harvest sunset. Moments passed as she stared at the space between us. I could literally feel her immense conflict; something big was building within her.

At last with silent, profound courage, she did it. Inch by inch, as innocent as falling snow and with half the speed, she began to slide toward me. Still focused only on the space left between us, she watched it until it vanished and the outside of our thighs touched.

Her gaze remained low as if she were flying under radar and trying to delay being detected. Now her body was perfectly still. She acted like a child on thin ice, afraid that any movement would fracture this fragile place, plunging her into cold darkness. Suddenly it made sense—this child lived outside the light of love. For her, affection
was
a foreign language. She wanted desperately to be loved like the other girls but didn’t know how to ask.

The adults continued to ramble on. More girls had crept into the meeting to join us. My dark little beauty watched them with lowered eyes. I finished the oily fishtail braid, and another girl with very short blond hair immediately slid into the vacated place at my feet. I began to knead her tiny back and shoulders. Sadly I sensed the anxiety rising again on my right. Her small frame stiffened.

Could the need for acceptance and love generate this much turmoil? No child
, I resolved,
should suffer like this
. Without taking my hands from the blond girl’s shoulders, I simply turned to the right and gave my dark-eyed lamb a kiss on the top of her head.

She sat rigid and still for the longest moment. Until finally, with a heave of her entire body, she released an enormous sigh. I smiled to myself.

The leaders of the meeting kept on talking around us. Occasionally I joined in. Squealing laughter and the shuffling of hooves on woodchips rose through the floor below us as the kids began to groom and tack up the horses.

Still gently kneading the tiny back between my knees, I looked to the girl still tentatively pressed against my right leg. Finally she looked back up at me. Her eyes were huge with uncertainty. They seemed to ask, “Are you going to make me leave now?”

I answered her with a smile and a wink. She stared at me, expressionless, and then her chin dropped and she slouched back into contemplation again.

Time passed. And then rather suddenly she sat up straight. With stealth, her dark eyes slid to the left and focused on my shoulder with the concentration of a marksman pinpointing his target. Her blazing intensity could have raised a blister on my bare skin.

I watched her with puzzled amusement. Overpowering her body’s inhibitions with sheer will power, she made her move. With the awkward, incremental movements of a robot, she clicked her neck sideways until her ear lightly touched my shoulder.

It looked right, but it wasn’t. Her body was in the correct position but her confidence wasn’t—it was in a fierce battle to survive. This remarkable triumph could have passed unnoticed, but it didn’t. Without a word, I slipped my right arm behind her and firmly enfolded her against my side. With just my fingertips I traced little patterns up and down her arm and across her back, alternately rubbing her petite neck and combing her beautiful hair.

As before, she finally exhaled with a mighty effort. Her bones seemed to flow out with her released breath as she completely crumpled against me.

My heart was as full as the breezy outdoors blowing around us. Adult voices rose and fell over our heads in harmony with the wind in the pines as the meeting continued. Yet another meeting, a silent meeting, drew to a warm conclusion as a newly converted snuggle-bug nestled under my right arm.

Wings to Fly
 

O
UR FIRST
introduction came on an exceptionally warm September day. I looked down to see a shy eight-year-old girl with tangled blond hair peeking around her mother’s leg. She stood with her arms either behind her back or hanging straight down at her sides. She was downcast, chin down, head down; only her eyes lifted briefly to look at me. They were beautiful, pale blue pools with dark rims—intense, intelligent, and profoundly sad.

Despite the warm weather, she wore a little vest decorated with horses. This little girl needed to be here. I knew she desperately needed acceptance by someone who would love her just as she was. “What’s your name?” I asked, crouching down to her level.

Without looking up, she simply replied, “Robin.”

I complimented her on the beautiful vest she wore and asked, “Would you like to ride a horse?” Her response was a solemn nod.

Soon we were kneeling in front of a small, freckled mare, preparing to feed her some well-deserved carrots. I held Robin’s tiny hands in mine and watched the wonder come over her face as the horse’s soft muzzle touched her hands for the first time. In those moments, her eyes
changed. The furrow between her blond eyebrows relaxed into a smooth, flawless plane. Her heart responded like snow to a spring thaw.