Harmony

Photo copyright Wings, 2014; all rights reserved.

All these years, and this is the only digital photo I could find of me with her.

Spock, the boarder horse, has been gone for several weeks now; she went to ostensible "training," was shown to be unsound (no surprise to us; a set of breeding issues that have been known and continue unchecked). She was slated to return at the end of the summer to board here, but is instead being sold because of that issue. We miss her, but at the same time, she was a handful — an absolute little troll. The day of her departure earlier this summer, the other five settled down immediately.

Today, though . . . today's much harder. Harmony has been with us since rescue, but she was technically a sort of co-ownership arrangement, although Wings held the papers. To her, we were hers, her humans; she owned us, body and soul, and she knew it. But circumstances change, and other parties often have other ideas and certainly other goals.  And Wings's interest has been bought out.

I've known for weeks that today was coming. It doesn't lessen it in the slightest. Harmony adopted me too many years ago to count; always spooky and shy, she gave me her trust, and I held it like the jewel that it was. When we lost Hunter, too soon after losing BearGirl and hard on the heels of losing Wings's father, we couldn't be there to hold her; we could ben connected to the vet, three hours away, only by phone. Harmony was the one who knew, and she came to the fence to watch in worry and despair. When it was done and Hunter was gone, I went inside the fence and wept. Harmony leaned her head into me, and quite literally held me up and kept me from collapsing on the dirt. That was the day she let me know that she had decided to bond to me completely. She was my girl, she was Miskwaki's girl, she was pure love.

So when she decided this morning that this business of getting into and out of the trailer was fund and all, but she was done now . . . she kept circling, looking at me as if to say, "You're not going to let this happen, right? I'm still here, right?"

And it broke my heart.

The horses are grieving; the dogs are grieving; we're grieving. I know that in many ways, it falls into that horrible category "for the best," but that's a utilitarian argument. Oh, she'll be well cared for, there's no doubt of that. She'll see Spock again, who she adopted as a surrogate daughter, at least unless and until Spock is sold. But she will not be with us; she will not be home.

And now there is a Harmony-sized hole in my heart bigger than my heart itself, bigger than me, and no amount of time will fill it back in.

After all these years, there are virtually no photos of me with her. The only digital one I could dig up today was the one above, and it doesn't show her well. I'm furious with myself for letting that happen.

We are down to four horses. Much more manageable, especially with winter coming.

My heart hurts.

Today's post at The NDN Silver Blog will be very late today. There will be no replies to comments, nor to e-mails other than orders and inquiries related to the gallery.