Unexpected friendship

When I shut my eyes and remember I can feel the brush of the warm June air on my face and the smell of horse manure drying in the sun.  I was just 14 that spring and loving my job working at a riding stable.  The owners had brought home a few wild mustangs from the Bureau of Land Management sale in Lansing the pervious fall and one of them, a shy strawberry roan mare was expecting a foal. 

Her udder had bagged up and formed the waxy tips on her teats that meant her foal would soon be arriving.  I sat hopefully outside the mares’ pen on a Thursday afternoon along side my cousin Candace, talking softly to each other and trying to will the mare into giving birth.  We wouldn’t have been so eager to have her deliver this day, but my brother was getting married in just two days and we would be busy with wedding activities and unable to come again before the wedding was over.  Unfortunately we were unsuccessful at willing the mare to have her foal and we down heartedly had to leave. 

Early the following Monday morning Candace and I bounded from the car eager to see if the new baby had arrived.  As we walked toward the pen the owner informed us that the shy mare had indeed given birth to a colt.  I can remember walking up to the fence and coming face to face with a leggy chestnut baby with raccoon rings around his eyes.  The new colt had been named Romeo in honor of being born on his owner’s anniversary.  Quite the opposite of his shy mama, Romeo was inquisitive and friendly, eager to be loved on.

On a cold January day seven months later I had finally talked my parents into letting me buy a young foal to raise and train.  Eagerly I called the riding stable to see if they would be selling any of the foals that had been born the past spring.  I was secretly hoping they would tell me they were selling a pretty tall dark bay filly that was born just before Romeo.  I was only slightly disappointed when it was Romeo that ended up being for sale.  Being so impatient to have a weanling foal I didn’t even have to think twice before I handed them the $300 dollars and brought him home.

He had a shaggy long coat, pot belly and was pretty scrawny.  My farrier asked me straight up why I had bought a horse that would surely be too small for an already 6ft tall girl.  I shyly smiled and mumbled that I liked him, in truth I hadn’t really thought about it.  In my dreams I had always pictured a tall beautiful spirited horse that would be my best friend.  Romeo was just a mutt in the horse world and quirky not spirited; in the back of my mind I thought I would probably sell him once he was trained.  After all he couldn’t possibly be my dream horse, could he?

Looking back I can see God’s perfect plan in giving me Romeo.  He brought me through the tough teenage years.  His stubbornness matched mine, if I lost my temper with him I had to earn his forgiveness, which he would eventually give if I was patient.  He taught me perseverance with his ungentle man habit of giving a playful nip when your back was turned.  He taught me trust as I swung my leg over him for the first time.  Romeo didn’t even flinch; he was ready and eager to go for a ride!  He was my shoulder to cry on many on occasions.  He taught me how to let go and say goodbye when after 12 years I finally had to let him go.  

Now when I am having a hard day I close my eyes and let my mind take me back.  I am running through the woods, arms outstretched, feeling one with him.  I am laying in a field as the sun beats down, his nose lowering into my face I can feel his whiskers tickling my nose. My face buried in his coat, I breath in deep his smell.  Life may have taken us apart, but the memories stay.

I had to part with Romeo because of my call to serve God overseas.  The girl who has had Romeo for the past year is unable to keep him and I will be getting him back the end of this month.  I am looking forward to having him for the last two months I am home.  I do however need to find a new home for him by the time I leave the end of July.  If anyone is interested in Romeo or knows of someone who may be please let me know!