Taking Note

As a writer, I find myself taking notes at the darndest of times. My daughter's pony died a few weeks ago, and I found myself watching every little detail of his illness, death, and subsequent burial in our pasture as if the details mattered more than the memories of his long and very happy life. While I have no doubt that this will come in handy should I ever have time to write the horse book of the century I've got hidden inside, it felt a little...disrespectful.

Perhaps I should have been concentrating on how devastated my little girl would be when I called to tell her that her first pony had died suddenly, instead of how the old guy had thrashed around on the floor, casting himself against one cinder block wall in an effort to escape the pain of his rupturing cecum. How the vet's throat got tight and her blue eyes shed a tear or two when she told me that she'd done everything she could for him, and recommended stopping his pain. I could have focused on my own tears instead of how Daimon's shoulder relaxed when the vet gave him the IV cocktail that slowed his heart to a standstill.

But I didn't. I noticed it all. I felt it all too: the tears, the thrashing, the final release.

They loaded Daimon onto a flatbed trailer so that I could take him home. I took the back road. For some reason it seemed disrespectful to take the freeway, as if I was in a hurry to get it all over and done with. Once home, I had to scramble to find a backhoe operator. There's a lot of construction in the area and most good guys are busy. I finally got through to the man who had buried another horse for us awhile back. He came out with his young son, dug a hole six by six by eight feet deep and lifted Daimon by the feet and swung him down into the grave. His touch was so light that he could have been tucking a baby into bed instead of laying out a thousand-pound animal. He then feathered the dirt pile he'd created back into the hole, mounding it into a perfect oval to finish.

Taking notes. Sometimes it just feels wrong. But sometimes it serves to mark memories so that they'll stay with us. Daimon was one terrific pony. I'll hold him in my heart forever.

Comments

[hank phillippi ryan]

You took the back road. That's the part that made me cry.

Thank you for writing this..thank you for remembering. Thank you for telling us the story about Daimon. You're a writer. That's exactly what you're supposed to do.