Rest quietly, Buddy. You are very missed.
Buddy.
If you've been around long enough, you know that every time we lose a horse, no matter how long they've been around, we share what we knew, their story, and try to pour out all of our love into their goodbye post to honor them, share them with you all one last time, and start to move on, usually on the same day.
But it's been five days and I still don't know how to start this post.
Buddy spent ten years being a calm, stable soul in our lives. Nothing phased him. He accepted moving facilities, horses in an out, hundreds of children and families petting him, grooming him, and giving him treats, and all our crazy chaos with the same steady, quiet personality he had on day one and day 3,648. In typical mule fashion, he loved a few mares with all his heart, though none could replace his long term best love, Nelly, who we lost just over 2 years ago at 35. After Nelly he started to get close to Phoebe but lost her a month after Nelly, and then spent some time with our grand old lady Shanno, who we lost earlier this year at 39.
Since then, he's spent more and more time alone. While he got along well with all the horses in our "senior" paddock, and did share a closer friendship with 30-yr-old Dex and 35-yr-old Chip, more often than not they would be checking in him, and he'd be off on his own. It's been obvious for a while that Buddy was tired, declining, and that we'd have to break our own hearts to help restore his.
Prior to coming to GSH, Buddy was an amazing trail mule! He and his owner traveled all over the United States, from mountains to riverbeds, and rode hundreds of miles together. In all that time, Buddy was just ... Buddy. Dependable, stable, calm. At 28, when he was ready to retire, she reached out and asked if he could come here, and we're so glad we could say yes.
Our only struggle with Buddy was helping him realize that retirement was an ok thing, that he could just rest and enjoy a calm life, and that affection from humans was a good thing. Over the years he learned to tolerate, maybe even enjoy being groomed. For the last several years, Nina would give him a separate hug before going in every night, and he learned to tolerate that as well. He hated having his ears messed with and for a very long time we had to be slow about putting his halter on to not upset him. He was a working mule, he told us over and over again, and physical touch was definitely not his love language.
But as often happens, his age caught up to him. We were certain when we lost Nelly that he wouldn't be far behind her, but he surprised us by accepting her loss and trying to make new friends. But he's never been quite the same, and over the last two years he's just slowly declined. His appetite was up and down, his energy and weight started to slip away, and we suspect that some tumors under his cheekbone that the vet found 8 years ago started to grow as he struggled with his vision. Despite our best efforts, we started to lose the weight battle, and we knew the day was coming sooner than we'd like.
As we agonized over the decision, it was one simple act that told us it was time. Last week, on one of her nightly hugs, Buddy leaned in. He let her pet and scratch his ears and didn't pull away. And while maybe in another horse that would be a good sign, that simple act of not being "Buddy" - not showing his opinions and personality, told us we needed to be done. Buddy was never going to leave on his own, and we didn't want his last day to be anything but normal. Calm. Stable.
Just like Buddy.
So we made the call, we made his day as normal as possible, and gave him all the foods and treats he wanted leading up to the day. And his last day was a normal day, the same day he lived over and over again, with his breakfast, his time out with his friends, and some special time with the people who loved him before the vet quietly put him to sleep, and then let him go.
I've often said that my vision of "heaven" would be that in one moment here on Earth, I will close my eyes and when I open them again I'll be in the most beautiful pasture, staring into the eyes of the person I loved most in my life, with every living creature I've ever loved standing around, waiting to say hello again. That is the same vision I have for our equine friends, and I like to believe that when he closed his eyes here, he opened them again to Nelly, brayed loudly to let her know he had been looking for her and was happy to find her again, and they moved off together, in sync, Nelly first, Buddy not far behind, to say hello to all the others that he ever had a bond with in this life.
And someday, when I arrive in that beautiful greener pasture, I know he will tip his head, but not hug me, just quietly and calmly acknowledge my presence, our bond, without fanfare or drama. Just calm, stable, sweet Buddy, who has left a mule-sized hole in our barn that will be hard to fill.
Rest quietly, Buddy. You are very missed.