One year without Ice.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

I just cannot believe that it's been one whole year since my big white mustang left me.

That was always one of my favorite photos of Ice. He was a camera hound, and the world's biggest ham: It didn't matter that he'd never seen a camera before he found us; he figured out right away what this was all about. He'd pose like a show horse without being told (or without even knowing what "show" meant). One evening, he literally did the whole supermodel-photo-shoot thing for me, swishing back and forth from side to side, "get my good side," "now get my other good side," over and over and over again. Someday I'll find that set of photos.

As of 10:30 this morning, he's been gone one full year. My heart is just as broken as it was on that day. I went out to where his body rests, by Cree and now by Shade, too; I took him cedar and tobacco, hay and grain and water. Wings understands why I do these things, because he does them, too. 

And I wept.

I thought I had so much more time with him, time to desensitize him from the abuse he suffered before he found us, time to break him in and ride him, to fly along with that perfect natural high-stepping gate in a wild mustang body. We didn't know that he was already sick when he found us, that the impaction was there and that the tumor was probably already there, too. We fought so very hard to save him the first time around, and we did, and we thought that was it.

And then the spirits ripped my heart out.

On the evening of August 4th of last year, he was wild and happy and free, running, bucking, pitching for the sheer joy of it, playing with Miskwaki and Shade. By the morning of the 5th, something was very wrong; by the 6th, he was gone.

And this Ice-sized hole in my heart, a sixteen-hand wild horse, never gets any smaller.

I told him about Miika today. He would've loved her, with her fire and her spirit and her bossy personality. He was the bad boy of the herd, and she would've loved him, too. I know his brother misses him still.

We do, too, this horse who stole in here and stole our hearts and left this raw and gaping void. We love you, by all your names: Miikwami, Shongeska, Ice. And I will ride you someday, in a world beyond this one.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.