Catharsis

It is inevitable.  You hit a rough patch in your life and you stare in disbelief as all around you the world goes on about its business, callously ignorant of your situation.

We lost an old horse this past summer.  She was most likely in her 30s and when it was her time to go, we all were at peace.  She died in the pasture on a June evening as the sun was setting, and we covered her in turnout blankets and made plans to bury her in the morning.  In case you are wondering, modern horse burial enlists a backhoe.  A man in my community owns an excavating business and over the years he has buried a couple of my horses as well as those of neighbors and acquaintances.  He enables the burial of an equine friend and therefore spares us the trauma of sending a carcass to unknown whereabouts.

The backhoe digs the grave, places the horse in it (an amazingly gentle procedure), and covers the grave with dirt.  At this point, you need three things:  a rake, a hoe, and time.  It takes several months for a horse grave to settle, and in the meantime you rake and hoe the dirt into the low spots, you remove all the sharp stones, and you let gravity and rainfall do the rest. On new year's eve, six months after our horse's death, my husband tended the grave by raking it smooth for the last time, then mulching it lightly with some old hay.  A chore, yes, but a peaceful one.

All around the world, people were making plans.  Some were celebrating with champagne and lights and perhaps a kiss at midnight.  Across the ocean, people from an island nation were grieving.  With aching hearts some wrote messages onto balloons to people whose faces they would never see nor voices they would never hear again.

And the world goes on.