Horse Dream Deferred
by Janice Luckey - April 2, 2020
The gotta-have-a-horse phase cast its spell on my granddaughter sooner than it bewitched me. I was 7 or 8 years old when I sat in front of our black and white television dressed in holsters and a red cowboy hat watching the Roy Rogers Show and lusting after Roy’s horse, Trigger. Now my six year old granddaughter’s love for horses grows from watching Spirit Pony Riding Free, an animated series onNetflix. Though she doesn’t don a cowboy hat or holsters, the dreamy idea of horses is still the same.
In my case, I wanted a horse of my own. When the answer from my parents to my plea was “No!”,(It may have been “#%@* No!”) I appealed to a higher court—my grandfather. He lived on a farm so I reasoned he would surely be sympathetic to my cause. I wrote him a plaintive letter that I needed a horse. Happily, when I arrived to spend the summer with my grandparents a brown and white spotted pinto pony grazed in the pasture. It wasn’t a palomino, but I didn’t care. I named him Trigger anyway.
My granddaughter just wanted her sixth birthday party at a local stable. Before birthday cake thick with icing was sliced, strawberry ice cream dipped, and candles lit, her classmates and cousins would all ride horses. A simple wish, but the Stay at Home mandate changed everything. No large group gatherings allowed. When told of the need to cancel her birthday plans, she burst into tears, ran to her bedroom and cried herself to sleep. A grandparent’s heart breaks over scenes like that. Maybe that’s what my grandfather felt when I sent my letter to him.
How do you explain a global pandemic to children? Does Google even know? We’ve never experienced anything like this before. The adults have had the bejeebers scared out of them but don’t want to pass that fear to their children. If we didn’t know it before, we know it now—theirs will be a different world. We’ve become a global neighborhood. What happens continents away affects us. We are social distancing literally six feet apart but it comes at a time in our country when we need to figuratively close the six-foot-gap between our differences. On the other side of this pandemic may we all be a changed people.
There will be other birthday parties though this one my granddaughter won’t likely forget. These lyrics remind us, “we’ll look back on these tears as old tales”. She is learning lessons we wouldn’t have her face just yet, but she rose to the occasion gracefully. We celebrated her birthday privately in the back yard taking turns swinging at a unicorn piñata. Sans horses, unicorns will do in a pinch.
And what of Trigger and me? Not so much. To tell you the truth I was more than a little afraid of him. When his stomping hooves fractured my grandfather’s ankle he was sold. It proves the adage—be careful what you ask for—you just might get it. Happy Trails!
Copyright 2020, Janice Luckey
Davidson, NC