Most of August and early September was very difficult around here for our team. When our new horse, Cowboy, arrived he was not feeling well. The illness that he had did not bother him too much, but unfortunately, even with good quarantine practices, Max caught his illness. What seemed to be a minor issue for Cowboy, ended up being almost fatal for Max, not once but twice. Max required around the clock care for over three weeks from our team and each of us was exhausted. Not to mention we had to continue to run our normal daily routine and sessions which unfortunately, we had to do some rescheduling. We have such wonderful and understanding client’s that we are very grateful for.

Life has a funny way of teaching us crucial life lessons through difficult times. It is part of my nature to try and learn everything I can from every experience I have with our herd, but

through this ordeal, if I am honest, I wasn’t really listening. Being in survival mode similar to when my children were in critical condition with their health issues would describe my state of mind best. Initially, when Max became ill I was obviously concerned, but didn’t feel the internal alarms going off. Then, it got serious in the middle of the night when one of our wonderful veterinarian’s had to come out. Max was in critical condition and we were faced with losing him. After that night, Max started to recover and was well on his way to feeling like himself when he became very sick…..again! Only this time, he was worse.

After our vet’s had done everything possible on both nights to help Max, we had to sit and wait each time, and not knowing if he’d make it was brutal. The “waiting”…oh my goodness does life get incredibly real during the waiting! Where your mind can go is dangerous. In the dark on my knees in the grass holding Max and petting him while we waited, silently in my head all I could think about was how much he helped our family through one of the most difficult times of our lives and how I never thanked him. We got Max when our oldest daughter was recovering from a serious illness and multiple hospitalizations that left her struggling with Post Traumatic Stress. When panic would hit twenty or more times (yes, that many times) a day, Max calmed her down with a simple walk. He went for walks ten to twenty times a day and never looked like he minded it a bit. Max is her “right hand guy” in this life, and in that moment the feeling of what pain she would feel if we lost him hit me like a ton of bricks. Comments like “this can’t happen! Why is this happening? Max is only five years old. This can’t happen to my baby girl! Do we wake her so she can say goodbye?” just kept flooding my head until it was spinning and of course, the river of tears followed. I realized that I never forgot what Max did for us and quite often spoke of it to our client’s, but the emotions of how I felt about that year and a half of our lives had been tucked away in a deep place.

During difficult moments and traumatic events, a coping skill that many people use even unknowingly, is to suppress how they feel about something just so they can endure what they are going through particularly when emotions run deep. Our team works with client’s daily who have experienced traumatic events or even cumulative trauma. These client’s have coped by pushing their emotions aside and unfortunately, those emotions have resurfaced at later times and in different ways/behaviors. In my situation, through our daughter’s illness, I focused solely on her needs/emotions. In my mind at that time, my daughter came first so I placed my needs on the “not important at this time” list. Like many of our client’s have experienced, my emotions resurfaced unexpectedly through Max’s illness and came like a tsunami.

For over three weeks, our family rode an emotional roller coaster that tested our faith significantly, wondering would our prayers be answered. As eye opening and emotionally draining this ordeal has been, grateful reigns at the top of my list. Everything our herd teaches our students and team can be relational in our own lives and I am grateful to be able to share this experience in hopes it helps someone. Max is still recovering and he is getting stronger everyday, but I was reminded of something even more important. There is a saying you don’t know what you have until you’ve lost it. Fortunately, as close as we came, that saying does not apply to our situation though it could be slightly reworded for our story to say you don’t know how much you love something until you have almost lost it. Hold close the ones you love most!