As Alive As Dying

Death sets you down. Death of a large animal has to be reckoned with.  As we were hiking the other day, we came on a horse in the last throes of living.  Her eyes closed, her breathing occasionally, but no other sign.  A mass of dying, right here open to the heavens, dug into the earth, she seemingly more alive than me; her aliveness being just a twinkling away from her dead nothingness, all she was to do she has done.  Once a horse, now moments from being just dead, gone forever.  My lover and I are simple people.  We believe, really, really believe.  An example.  One day, while riding in Big Bend, a big buck ran across the road back into the scrub.  We stopped, and she whistled at him, and he turned and looked at us.  We marveled at his beauty, his being, his power, all the while, we were both talking to him.  As we drove off, she shouted, “We love you!” and, taking my cue from her, I shouted, “We’ll see you in heaven!”  Both of us were telling the truth.  We are simple.  So we looked longingly at this dying being, a horse, a good horse.  And in some way, we both experienced sorrow for her passing and joy in her crossing over…to the earned and welcomed rest.  And that is the simple truth of four simple, living and dying creatures.  Sparrows and horses fall to the earth only with His notice.    

The horse.

  

The buck.