The Giving

By: Nicole A . Musmanno

Our anniversary is fast approaching.

Nov 24, 1987 I stepped out of my mom’s car into an ice crusted puddle. The day was damp, grey and humid, bone piercing cold. I was miserable, wet, cranky and indignant. For a ten year old one would think I would have been filled with excitement. After all, we were out on such a foul day to look at a horse for me. I had out grown my pony and it was time to consider stepping up in size. However, the time spent prior to that day trying to find a horse had taught me a valuable life lesson, there is a reason a horse is for sale, and it is not usually a good one. To say I had turned bitter and bored would have been an understatement. The quality of the day and my faith in how the events of the affair would pan out had put my tendency to be a twit into overdrive.

I do not remember my mother telling me to pull my attitude out of the crapper. Nor do I remember her reminding me that this was not her idea of fun, and by the way, she did not need to spend the money for a horse on a brat. I do remember her body language said I had about ten seconds to U-turn my attitude, or she would drag my butt back to the car and forego the entire thing. Amazingly enough, even the fear of my mother following through with the action did nothing to stop me from stomping right into the barn and towards the stall door.

Stall number 9.

I remember the events to follow in vivid pictures and moments in my mind. If I close my eyes I see him. Behind my tears I still see him. First impression could not have been good, it was not for me, and I am certain the horse felt a similar vibe.

“He’s orange.”

A look from my mother told me to shut-up. Then she politely turned back to my trainer to listen to the story of the horse, Dakota.

“He’s orange. I can’t ride an orange horse.” Actually he was a dun that would be called everything from plain bay to honey bay. His permanent brand inspection would say dun.

This time the look I received came from a different source and actually made me shut-up. Dakota, much taller than my short frame, raised his neck into an arch, making certain his head, even though behind the bars of the stall, was positioned above mine. He cocked his head and stared right into me with large, dark eyes. The likes of which I had never seen: wise, gentle, soulful, filled with past.

“Who are you? You don’t look like much.”

Those eyes silenced me and stole my heart. I had met my match, in more ways than I would ever know and perhaps still do not know. What I do know is that he was the horse no one could ride. He had been severely abused. The horse who only a week ago had torn around an arena, refusing to stop until the male trainer who was on his back took a flying leap. The horse who had failed as a mountain cow pony, polo pony and dressage horse, that very horse owned my heart from that moment forward. And yes, he allowed me to ride him.

I do not remember ever a scary moment together. I do remember Dakota and I racing a storm home. The same storm that I am certain Dakota saved my life when while I was trying desperately to be a good Pony Clubber and make sure he was cared for after the hard ride home, Dakota kicked the stall door shut, narrowly missing my head. The only aggressive move he ever made towards me and I know it was his way of saying, “get in the house, NOW.” Dodging a shovel that flew across my path, I made it into the house, in time for the tornado to hit.

I also remember galloping out of the start box at Lory State Park with a high fever. The one time Dakota gave me a “slower” ride on cross-country, actually pausing once on course to shift me back into the saddle before continuing on our way. We crossed the finish line where I slid from the saddle straight to the ground and laid there, we won. The next show he crashed our last fence in warm-up, as he often did in what I am convinced was his way of saying, “Just remember he who jumps has the power”. We bombed around that course as usual, fast and clean.

He also playfully bit me in the boob, three times. It was a phase.

I have nearly twenty-two years of memories including one last month where I lived at home with my parents while we waited to move into our new house. Every day, usually in the morning, I would hug his neck and kiss those beautiful eyes and tell him, “I am ready. I will hate this universe without you but I am ready. You may go. You’ve done your job. Please rest.” Then I would chase him to get him to stand up, as once again he got stuck in the sand pit, his favorite place to sleep because it contoured his body and stayed cool.

There are still mixed feelings about those final months. Dakota’s life turned upside down with my horse Slewth, who is barely tolerable for any horse to live with, and the addition of two new mares. Still I wonder if he felt replaced. I hope he saw that the beauty of his legacy and life lessons would live on in these new creatures.

The week before I made the decision, every night I had a dream Dakota died. Extremely vivid, usually very tragic and violent, always he showed me his leg. That damned left hind. The leg that finally brought the always stoic, never flinching horse down. I called my parents. My mother explained what they had been seeing every day and I said what I knew had to be said.

“I’ll be there Monday. We’ll do it Wednesday. I want one more day with him.”

Our last day together I groomed him and let him graze. I tried not to cry, just think of the positive and the good. All the gifts he gave everyone in his family. How he had gone from abused horse, terrified of men to my father’s best friend. A champion in three disciplines who had come out of retirement twice to pull me mentally out of despair after other horses had broke down. The horse that took a kid, with no patience, prone to pouting and showed the girl her gift within for understanding troubled creatures.

He gave me so many gifts. I had but one to give him. A promise. A promise I made to him years ago, I would see him through to the end, he would die with his family and I would be there to the end.

Never have I called a vet in advance to schedule something like this, for me that always seemed a “day of” decision not a scheduled date of execution. Tuesday, I called for Wednesday, July 1, 2009. That morning my father and I fed in near silence together. Back in the house we met in the hallway and he wrapped me in a hug. In a rare moment of me allowing someone to comfort the pain I sobbed, and we both knew what we would do that day although hard, had to be done. Dakota was tired and needed rest.

As the moment drew nearer everyone came into the barn and hung around. He knew. Dakota knew. As people talked and fed him carrots I kept a nervous eye over my shoulder for the grey vet truck. It arrived, late. I heard it before I saw it and the panic that shot threw my body can never be described. I have put down animals before, 3 in less than a year, and nothing felt quite like this, though to be fair they all have their own feel. I allowed the moment to hit and feel the fear and dread. Then I walked him out to his favorite tree and waited for the vet to come with the needle. The pink poison that frees our friends, I have never hated something so much in my life as that syringe and yet I asked for it.

Suddenly, everything washed away. No tears. No fear. I held my friend, put my lips to his forehead and kissed him over and over and over. “This is good. This is good. Go.” I kissed his eyes, over and over as the pink juice found the vein. I stepped back only for him to crash to the ground then I rushed back to his head telling him all the while, “This is good. Go. Go please go this is good. You can go you can rest. I’ll be fine. Go.” Not a tear shed. I actually smiled and felt his last breath. His spirit sent off with a sage burning.

When the truck came to take him, my father asked me to please go inside.

“No. I promised Dakota.”

My father and husband watched with me as the rain pulled Dakota into the truck. I took one last moment with my friend, climbing into the truck and kissing that soft nose, already cooling, and one last look into those eyes. I kept hearing lines from RENT songs. Dakota loved when I sang to him. It always calmed him. “Good-bye Love. Good-bye Love. Came to say good-bye Love. Good-bye.” (RENT)

Closing the doors and knowing that was the final time I would see his body, feel his mane against my face, see his copper penny coat as he glistened to the end and smell his breath, I cannot to this day quite accept. But I kept my promise.

As we turned the locks on the truck doors, what had started out as the hottest day of the year so far, suddenly a storm rumbled across the sky. Rain drops started to fall, softly, gently I stood in the rain alone, my father and husband gave me that moment. I watched the truck lumber down our driveway, make that final left turn and disappear. The sky opened up as if nature mimicked my soul, mourning with me and for him. A torrential downpour. The passing of soul and true friend. The passing of an era.

The Giving Soul. Dakota 1976-2009. We are the same age.

Oddly as the fates would have it, the tree where we let both Dakota and Piper go, the tree where Piper now rests and so too will Dakota, passed away a week later. After losing Piper my father said, “That tree is only holding on for Dakota.” He was right. The noble Ponderosa Pine that once shaded my noble horse is now a stump, waiting to be engraved as one last gift from our “Giving Tree”.