A Tribute to Eli: 1 Year Later

So my very first horse, Eli, passed away a year ago today. I met him when I was an angsty 11-year-old, and grew up with him until I was 26 years old. In August of 2018 he was diagnosed with 2 life-ending health problems, and I was told I had about 6 months left with him. We did everything we could from bute to supplements to keep him comfortable, but I had a feeling that he wouldn’t see the end of the year.

And then this day came. September 18, 2018. I remember it so clearly… I was running down Factory Shops Blvd. in Castle Rock, training for a half marathon. I was just about to Founders Parkway, and I was overcome with this feeling that he needed me…RIGHT now. So I paused for a moment and checked in with him. “Eli, are you okay?”  He responded, “Can you come, please?”  which was strange for him, because usually when I’d check in with him from afar, he’d say something nice like “just making sure you were there” and then he’d go on his way. But he asked me to come, so I sprinted back home, got in my truck and drove like mad to the property he was at, expecting to find him down. Instead, he looked up at me when I called to him and asked me so clearly, “Is it okay if I go now? I’m so tired.”

And so I sat down and wept. He stood over me and rested his nose on my shoulder. I asked him if he was sure, and every time I would doubt myself or doubt his decision, he’d walk away from me. As soon as I told him “okay, you can go” he would come back and rest with me again. And so I made the phone call, spent the next 8 hours with him and let him leave his failing body. 

 
This photo was taken that morning. After the phone calls were made and the arrangements were in place, he came to me and laid down. He let me lay on his neck and cry, holding such a beautiful space for me.

This photo was taken that morning. After the phone calls were made and the arrangements were in place, he came to me and laid down. He let me lay on his neck and cry, holding such a beautiful space for me.

 

Originally, I planned on writing him a letter a year after he died, apologizing to him for all of the things I did wrong. Somehow, I thought that this would help me feel better, to find some more concrete closure. See, I didn’t discover this beautiful, harmonious way of being with horses until the last few years of his life. He raised me through my very troubling teenager years, he carried me around countless horse show rings and got on an innumerable amount of horse trailers to move to a thousand different barns. Yet, his love for me never wavered. Sure, we fought. He would force a lesson that I wasn’t ready to learn. But at the end of the day, that horse loved me. He loved me fully. He loved me with every ounce of his being and made sure that he taught me everything he possibly could before he left. 

So instead of an apology letter, I’m going to thank him for all the times he loved me, even when it was hard. Like the times I….


1. Dressed him up in costumes for barn Halloween parties…

2. Decided to get bangs and forced him to take 100 selfies with me…

 
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3. Asked him to jump around a course wearing pink…

 
Who am I kidding? He rocked this.

Who am I kidding? He rocked this.

 

4. Asked him to jump something when he didn’t want to jump something (which was pretty much every jump)…

 
Oops.

Oops.

 

5. Forced him to cuddle me when he just wanted to hang out with his friends…

 
 

6. Made him halters out of twine…

 
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7. Interrupted his dinners while I was in college so he could help me study…

 
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8. Made him wear my hat…

 
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Okay, so maybe even the “bad” stuff wasn’t all the bad 😉I think, looking back at it now, we were both so childlike for so many years. We’d butt heads for months at a time, but then at the end of the day, we’d be calling to each other and neither of us wanted to say goodnight. He taught me so much about what it means to be me.

And then, there was all of the magic we shared together. The cuddling, the hours doing nothing together, cleaning up in the show ring, the naps we’d take where he’d lay his head in my lap and dream of running the Kentucky Derby. He truly was my best friend, and I believe whole heartedly now that I was his, too. 

Perhaps my favorite, though, is the day I found him standing in his stall on Christmas Day, with a red bow tied to his halter. The day he became mine. The day he and I were tethered together for eternity, bound my an immense amount of admiration, excitement and unconditional love. 

I cried the moment I turned the corner of the barn and discovered that he was mine. And throughout our years together, I shed many tears. Some were for the disappointments he and I faced, some were for boys that never measured up to him, some were for friends that ended up astray… but none of them were as surreal and as powerful as the tears I cried the day he died. The day I let his body go. The day he and I entered a new chapter of our relationship…one that was not defined by physicality.

 
This was an hour before he left this world, standing over me so proudly and ready to go, knowing he taught me everything from his body that he needed to teach me.

This was an hour before he left this world, standing over me so proudly and ready to go, knowing he taught me everything from his body that he needed to teach me.

 

My dearest, sweetest Big Loo Loo Bean. Thank you for loving me with everything you had. Thank you for being relentless in the lessons you needed to teach me. Thank you for being patient with me when I was not patient with you. But most of all, thank you for staying close ever since you left your body, for being my support system from afar, and for orchestrating such amazing things from wherever you are. Everything I do, I think of you. I love you forever and always.

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An Open Letter to The Horse

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Spoiler Alert: You Can Actually Talk To Your Horse