Hope Rising (21 page)

Where there is safety, there is rest. With rest comes clarity of thought. Above the whispering mountains, Sondra’s immediate future crystallized, and she made her decision. The community nestled in the hills far below would become her family’s new home. Finally the weary bird came safely to rest, nestled deep within the presence of God.

Sondra called me after making the decision to move to
Central Oregon. Her love for her children clearly came across the telephone line. She showed special concern for Emily, her talented middle child, who seemed to be having the most trouble adjusting to their new life. I encouraged her to bring her two girls to the ranch the following Saturday.

The ranch was at rest under a cool, bright afternoon sky when their car wound its way up the hill and stopped in the main yard. What I noticed first about Sondra were her dark, intelligent eyes, whimsically framed by round glasses. Her easy laugh hinted at a household that was often filled with girlish giggles and fun. Yet the intensity in her gaze revealed her inner strength—and the ferocity of a lioness ready to protect her cubs. I liked her immediately.

She introduced me to her two daughters. Emily and Lauren were fourteen and sixteen, both with the innocent, impish beauty of girls who honestly don’t know how lovely they are. They were warm and only a little shy. I took them around our small ranch on a detailed tour until there was only one paddock left to visit. I was following my hunch.

“These are all youngsters we’ve rescued this year,” I told the girls, naming the horses and sharing the stories of how they came to be at the ranch. Three inquisitive little geldings reached over and through the fence poles, happily seeking any hand that might offer a snack or a good scratch.

The sisters giggled a bit as they reached from muzzle to muzzle to greet the curious colts. I have seen the delighted expressions on the faces of thousands of youngsters, but I never cease to be moved by them. The girls’ attention was lost to everything but the eagerly questing creatures before them. With mouths slightly open, lifted in silent smiles, the sisters were filled with wonder, their eyes twinkling with possibilities and love. They were
utterly captured in the moment.

Then to my great surprise, Solemn approached us as softly as a breeze. From the back of the small herd, her unmistakable black muzzle reached toward Emily’s outstretched fingers.

Contact—with a total stranger.

Despite my amazement I wondered if on an emotional level the girl and the filly were strangers after all. Emily turned to me with a radiant smile. “What’s this one’s name?” she asked, stroking the filly’s cheek.

“Solemn,” I told her, watching this remarkable breakthrough with fascination. The girl, of course, was oblivious to the magnitude of what was happening. “Emily,” I said. “I have an idea.…”

Within minutes we had groomed Solemn. A beaming Emily led her into the round pen. Together, she and I would work with the horse from the ground. I gave Emily a quick briefing on how horses communicate and the kind of response we hoped Solemn would give. I encouraged Emily to relax and to move easily around the center of the pen so that I could puppet her movements from behind.

Solemn began to trot around us, and I whispered steadily into Emily’s ear, explaining what the filly was doing—alternately looking for escape or for acceptance. I also told her how the horse might interpret what we were doing.

The horse glided around us, black, long-legged, cantering with fluid grace. I crouched awkwardly behind Emily as we tried to coordinate our movements. I told her that what we were doing might not work. So far a breakthrough was beyond Solemn’s ability to trust since she was still an extremely frightened young horse. Some even considered her a wild horse.

Solemn trotted in a looping chain of circles, constantly keeping a watchful eye on the girl in the center. A girl who needed so much to be accepted exactly how she was, waiting to become all that she was created to be.

Knowing glances drifted between Emily and Solemn. They had lived deeply similar lives. Had shared the same crushing blows of rejection, isolation, and loneliness. Understanding began to occur on a level deeper than words.

With a subtleness that only a trained eye could see, the filly’s perfect circling began to falter, drifting into irregular patterns. Her eyes shifted from a wary measuring of Emily to a soft invitation. The invitation melted into a voiceless plea.

Like an electrical conduit the silence between them was alive with communication. They seemed to be looking into each other’s hearts, finding there a reflection of themselves. Through their pain they reached toward each other—girl to horse, hand to hide. Abruptly the filly turned in to the center of the ring, slowing to a walk that brought her within inches of Emily and me.

“Oh my gosh!” Sondra gasped, moving her hands reactively toward her face. She knew Solemn’s background, her mistrust of people. Balancing between unbelief and amazement, Sondra obviously understood the impact of this moment. I backed silently out of the pen, leaving Emily and Solemn alone together.

Neither wished to be alone again. Standing nose to nose, black filly to blond girl, they complemented each other like salt and pepper, like night and day, each filling a void within the other.

Sondra gripped the top of the gate in white-knuckle fashion, watching this sudden flowering of her child’s
soul. With the softness of a dove, Emily placed her hand on Solemn’s forehead and began to rub it in slow circles. With her other hand she cupped the filly’s cheeks and kissed her velvety muzzle.

A barely audible giggle broke from Emily’s lips. I glanced at her mother. Sondra’s eyes glistened; tears left silver traces down her cheeks.

From behind the solid wall of the round pen, I asked Emily to turn and walk away from Solemn. I wanted her to know that the filly had approached her willingly and deliberately. I wanted her to know this was no coincidence.

Reluctantly, not wanting to leave the warmth of this tentative new friendship, Emily did as I asked. After taking a dozen steps, she stopped. A black muzzle gently bumped her in the back. Instant realization split her face into a smile that would have melted steel. “Mom!” she cried—it was the only shocked word that escaped her lips. But it clearly captured her transparent joy.

Sondra watched it all in slack-jawed amazement—the outcast horse choosing to follow the outcast girl. The process was repeated several times. Finally, Emily turned back around and stepped into the filly’s space. Lifting her arms, she encircled Solemn’s neck with a full embrace, resting her cheek against the filly’s.

From the gate, Sondra dropped her forehead onto the backs of her hands and wept openly. For mother and daughter walls of sorrow came crashing down under a roaring flood of release.

I looked from girl to horse. Emily’s eyes were peacefully closed, the filly’s dreamily half open. The two leaned
into each other, resting, drawing comfort from one another. Cheek to cheek, their posture embodied a silent, healing promise. Between the two of them it became their Solemn vow.

Fast Forward
 

K
IDS HAVE AN
innate sense of when to kiss what needs kissing and when to hug what needs hugging.

Matthew and I had just brought out his favorite horse, an Appaloosa mare called Jasmine. At fourteen and a half hands and sixteen years old, I thought she was the perfect size and temperament for this busy six-year-old boy. Matthew could fit more life into a minute than others could in an afternoon.

Together we groomed her through a hail of machine gun paced questions. Matthew tackled each task with complete fervor and passion. He moved and talked with twice the speed of a mortal being. The simple act of cleaning out a hoof quickly escalated into full combat with an imaginary foe. The hoof pick suddenly turned into a miraculous device that vaporized the enemy. Of course, the entire scene was furnished with lifelike sound effects.

Just being with Matthew was like standing near a waterfall. Without realizing it, his zest for life would cover me like a fine mist. Before long I was drenched with the pure life that literally sloshed and splashed from his magnificent wake.

Matthew could draw any adult to shed grown-up
boundaries and live like a child again. Why walk when you can run? Why talk when you can shout? Why stroll through the grass when you can roll through it? There’s just so much life to experience.

Once the grooming was finished, we practically ran to the tack room. I handed Matthew the bridle while I reached around for a small saddle.

The ranch was in full swing, and I suddenly found myself momentarily trapped in the corner by mingling leaders and children. When I was able, I made my way to the door with saddle, pad, and helmet draped over my arm. While striding across the small porch I glanced up—a speeding train would not have stopped me faster!

Matthew was under Jasmine and appeared to have his head upside down and stuck between her front legs! His little body was crouching directly beneath her girth. His tiny chest was pressed against the space just behind her front legs, with each arm extended out and up toward her back.

Blessed Jasmine was peacefully taking it all in stride as I cautiously approached them. “Matthew, honey, are you all right?” I asked with a calming voice.

He rotated his head to the right, which placed his left ear firmly between her pectoral muscles. With dreamy eyes veiled by Cupid’s arrow, he looked up at me and proclaimed, “I just
love
her!”

“Oh my gosh, you’re giving Jasmine a hug!” I suddenly realized out loud. Now his contorted posture made perfect sense. After all, that’s how you would hug your mom, chest to chest, with arms wrapped around her body.

“That’s so sweet,” I crooned while gently grasping his wrist and pulling him out from under the patient freckled
gray mare.

After safely guiding Matthew to the velvety space between her nostrils, I redirected his affection by saying with a laugh, “I think she needs a kiss now!”

The Negotiator
 

T
HE DAY SHE
arrived at the ranch, everyone did their best not to shrink back from the black filly we had just rescued. Not only was Solemn’s physical condition hideous, her sheer terror of humans made her impossible to approach. Eventually, one by one, the “Good Samaritans” who had tried to be kind to her would give up and leave their offerings of carrots or grain on the ground before walking away. All but one, that is. All but Sierra.

Sierra was drawn toward the skeletal filly like a sunflower to sunlight. I told her the filly’s background, and she devoured every detail until I said that there were other horses that had been left behind. Perhaps more than twenty others were still trapped in hopelessness. She heard nothing else—that one fact pierced her heart like an arrow of ice.

I learned later that Sierra, who normally takes every day by the tail, quietly retreated that evening to the privacy of her bedroom. Only there, alone at last, did she allow her grieving heart to spill out a torrent of compassionate tears.

Within days, Sierra begged me for any photographs I had of the other horses who might still be suffering. She
could barely eat or sleep, knowing there were other horses needing to be rescued. Finally she told me her simple plan. With all the tender wisdom of her fourteen years, she said, “I’ve been saving up to buy a saddle. Maybe … just maybe it will be enough.”

It had taken her over a year to earn that money.

If she could gain the approval of her parents, Sierra hoped to use her savings to purchase the release of one of the other suffering horses. She understood that her family’s “financial strain meter” was already in the red zone and that owning a large animal would only increase that strain.

Sierra talked with her dad and laid out the contents of her heart like a map, looking solely to him for guidance. After presenting her case, she wordlessly handed him the photographs. One by one, he went through them. Soundless minutes passed slowly as he absorbed each pitiful image.

Sierra watched as his compassionate eyes began to fill with tears. More long moments passed. Finally, in a voice that was soft and hoarse, he spoke. “Honey, I am so proud of you.” He cleared his throat. “You put the greater need of one of God’s creatures ahead of your own. You could have spent this money on a hundred different things—things that
you
need. But instead, you want to give it for another’s need. You make me proud to be your dad.”