A Very Sad Day

Our journey home from Buck's music event yesterday, was not without unexpected twists, turns and tragedy. We hit the road and headed east, stopping for lunch while still in CA. The day was great, to this point, all of us still filled with exuberance at the success Buck found in his music experience.

We set the GPS and checked our estimated and much-anticipated arrival time home. We were cruising along and according to our speed and road conditions, the GPS showed us arriving home around 7 PM. Perfect for the Sunday night before our boys' first day of school. There were some nerves and they were anxious to see their Nana and their sisters. As were we.

Bantering back and forth about the glorious day, we noticed a small car stopped on the side of the 10 freeway, just east of Quartzite, AZ.  The middle of absolutely nowhere. "Those are two very young girls," my husband said, immediately pulling the car to the shoulder. "They need help." We backed up and noticed they had jumped back in their car. "They're scared," he said, so I jumped out alone and walked back to the car. I could tell that seeing a female, instead of a man, helped them a little and they climbed out, frightened and alone. All I could think was, what if these were my girls?

I greeted them and asked where they were headed. They told me Clearwater, Florida, to a Christian college. Familiar with the Clearwater area and the beautiful Clearwater white-sand beaches that were special to my own mom and dad, I reflected quickly on the trip to Clearwater that we had taken our kids on, only three years earlier. It was a long, long way from the isolated stretch of barren desert we were standing in. 

After a few phone calls to a completely helpless father in Sacramento, he agreed to let us help them. We knew he was agonizing with them in all of this. We piled into our car, removing bags to store in their car until we returned. We turned back and went into Quartzsite to a small U-Haul office. They had a car dolly, but we had no hitch. We went farther down the road to a truck-stop, but they had no hitch either. Watching my husband talking to a man with a pickup, he unfolded some bills and came back to our car with a 2" ball and hitch. We were in business. We ran back to the U-Haul, hooked the dolly on and headed back to the girls' stranded car. Within minutes, the seven of us were heading east again. Relieved, relaxed and grateful.

Our new friends, Valerie and Randi, were lovely, amazing Christian girls. We made our introductions around the car and tried our best at small talk, which quickly moved to larger talk. We covered some common ground, brothers and sisters in Christ guided by an amazing God who watches out for us, even when lost in our own deserts. Sweet Valerie, who owned the car, did a fair amount of apologizing. Her good friend Randi, continuously excused her, reminding her that none of this was her fault. I spoke to them about the twists and turns that God plans for our roads in life. I'm thankful for our time with those amazing girls, who obviously have terrific parents, grateful to be useful in such a small way in God's grand plan for their lives. As grateful as they were to be rescued, it was our family who was blessed.

Somewhere in this chain of events, we got a frantic call from our frightened daughter, Audra, who had just arrived at the house with her Nana.  Something was horribly wrong with our mare, Peppy, who was in foal (pregnant).  She wouldn't move, was in a full sweat and leaning hard on the fence. My husband called our vet, Jimmy, and asked him to get over there to check it out. We said a quick prayer and figured that she may have a belly ache or something minor.

At this point, our GPS was not nearly as smitten with us as it had been before we were towing another car. Our arrival time home quickly turned to 10:00 PM.  Valerie's sister, whom the girls were scheduled to stay with for two days, lived only 45 miles or so east of our home. She was en route to meet us along the freeway, to take the girls safely to her house. About 9:30, we met Jessica and the girls were relieved and happy to be safely on their way with family.  We kept the car, which our mechanic picked up from our house that same night, just after 10:00. 

Finally home, we got the boys out and headed to the back.  Our vet was there and our mare looked awful. She had a dangerous fever over 105 degrees, about four degrees above normal and looked comatose. Our vet ran his ideas by us and we brainstormed.  Our friend, Warren, who fed for us while we were away had come over to help. My heart broke for him, as he felt so responsible, even though it was nothing he did or did not do. I gave him a big hug to thank him for his efforts and we dove in to try to solve the riddle. She was fine at her 5:00 feeding and almost dead at 7:30. Nothing made sense. She had a horrible seizure with the vet, before we arrived and he had her on IV fluids along with countless other meds. He was throwing his best at her and she was not responding. We suspected dehydration, but her blood panels looked great and she showed no sign of dehydration. We hung eight bags anyway and filled her full of fluid. 

It was a long night. Everyone left around 11 and my husband and I stayed up with her most of the night. We spelled each other for two hours sleep, but I'm not even sure I can call it that. She had several more seizure-like episodes during the night and it broke my heart to see her suffering. We called Jimmy back out at about 5 AM. He had been there long into the night and the morning light did not bring with it hope. He was still baffled by her condition - it was looking more grim by the minute. I managed, with our friend Keith's help, to get our four kids off to school.  It was difficult to see them so sad. I put on my brave face, trying to look like everything was okay as I dropped the boys off for their first day, but we all knew our hearts held a different story. I managed my back-to-school pictures and lots of hugs, before returning home to find the guys taking down fencing trying to get our horse, Peppy, out of her stall. Whatever had seized her brain, was making her legs useless under her 1200 lb. body.

It's not an easy sight to see the beloved horse you've raised from the day it was born, the horse who's carried your kids safely through their lessons, dying in front of you for no explicable reason. It did not make sense. She was vaccinated against all the diseases we would suspect could cause this. Our vet came to believe, in the end, that she possibly had a stroke, a brain aneurysm or brain abscess.  Her body was shutting down and her blood panels were so poor that all vets involved felt there was no medical hope. Because we loved her, we had to let her go. Three men, with great effort, managed to get her out of her stall, where we made the horrifically painful decision to humanely euthanize her. 

My husband stood and brushed her. A cowboy and his horse, standing eye-to-eye for the final time. We said our goodbye's as we stroked her muzzle, apologizing to her that we could not do more. Mostly, we cried. We lost a dear friend and her unborn foal today, for reasons we will never know. I was starkly reminded of my conversation the previous night with our new friends, Valerie and Randi. About the twists and turns that God plans for our roads in life. Plans that can, so quickly, bring us to our knees.I've posted a picture of our sweet friend, Peppy, with her foal from 2007. Our Peppy, 1997 - 2009, you were loved!

Today would have been my dad's 72nd birthday. The kids would like to think that God took their friend to Heaven, so that Pop Pop would have a really nice present. I can't pretend to know what God's plans are, but this sounded like a very good way to give our very sad day a happy ending.

Happy birthday, Dad.