Grieving

I feed horses this morning. I still feel an emotional disconnect around these four-legged friends, so I sit on the fence and wait. I wait to see how they will react to me for horses are the best indicator of emotional stability one might ever hope to find. One finally leaves his pile of hay to investigate. This one is the quietest. Of the three in this paddock, this one has the most stable personality. Not much phases him, including, apparently, my tears. Later, the second walks over. This horse doesn't come too close. In fact, he stays a good ten feet away, but he watches with relative calm and he listens with I speak to him. After a few minutes he lowers his head, licks his lips and walks away. This is typical horse language for acceptance. This is good.

Finally the last horse approaches. This is the horse I have spent the most time with. He pins his ears at the second horse, telling him to move further away. The horse moves. The third horse comes close, but when he sniffs me he jumps. When I extend my hand to him, he shies away. I am not the person he expects me to be and this is unsettling to him. To me, too. A few minutes later, though, he returns. I have remained on the fence, waiting for him. This time he rests his chin on my knees. I pet his forehead and stroke his ears. He sighs, then walks away.

I am not the same person I was before Colby passed away and the horses have let me know they understand this. I remember that in working with horses, people must expect progress in the horse's time frame, not theirs. For example, you can't go out to the barn and expect to teach your horse something new in five minutes. It might be that the horse does learn in that time frame, but it is more likely that the horse will learn in 30 minutes, in two days, or a month.

Grief is like these horses I love so much. I can't expect my grieving to evolve to the next stage in my time frame. It will evolve when it is ready, when it knows I am ready. In the meantime, I hope the horses will get to know the new me, to understand the new energy, the roller coaster of emotion that I project, is not a threat to their safety. I may not yet inspire enough confidence for them to trust me to lead them away from danger, but the fact that they are no longer running from me means I am headed in the right direction.