It’s been a difficult couple of weeks, but I’m back and I
think I can put this down without “losing it” too terribly. I lost my grandpa the day after Christmas, so
today, I think I’m going to give you a few stories in his memory.
I’ll never forget the day my grandpa met Annie. It was the end of April. I’d had Miss Annie all of, maybe, a couple of
days. I was sixteen. Annie was two. Papaw was sitting with my mom on the tailgate of
one of the pickups in the driveway and I was showing off my new baby to my
favorite old cowboy, who had brought me a new saddle blanket for my little mare.
(I still use this blanket every time I ride Annie.)
I showed him what we had been working on in her ground training (of
course, my bratty two-year-old mare was showing him just how much she liked to resist and misbehave). Papaw reached out and asked to see her up
close. I led her over to him and handed
him the lead rope.
My little snot of a horse (who had been testing me and throwing a fit
for the last few minutes) lowered her head and rested her star on his chest and
closed her eyes. She sighed deeply more
than once. He rubbed her face and talked
to her. My heart melted. My mother has recounted this
story many times, and I love the way she describes it. She’ll say, “It was like that horse wanted to
crawl up in his lap like a cat, curl up, and go to sleep.” I’ve always heard that horses are a good
judge of character and that they know a good old horseman when they see one,
but actually witnessing my little horse fall in love with him was one of the
most beautiful moments in my memory.
*
My grandpa came from a ranching family in the next county
over. He, his brothers, and his father
broke horses, rounded up and worked cattle, rode their horses to school, everything. (One of his brothers is in the Texas Cowboy
Hall of Fame for his years of old-fashioned cattle round-ups on Fort Hood land, going well into the 1980s.)
My mother had shown me pictures from the
time I was young of my grandpa and his brothers working cattle on
horseback. I’ve seen several pictures of him and
his horse, “Paint,” and asked him about his days on horseback. Now that I think about it, I don't think he ever called Mocha by her own name, as she was always "Paint" to him. Half of the time, I catch myself calling her by that name now, though her name will always be Mocha. Calling her by his preferred nickname for her carries something special in it--a piece of him.
*
Between instruction from my dad and my grandpa, I learned
how to pull and back a trailer at the tender age of sixteen, which was not a huge
problem since I’m a country girl and have been driving around the ranch since I
was six. Papaw went with me on a couple
of trips and gave me pointers on pulling the trailer. He never raised his voice or criticized. He’d speak gently, saying things like, “Now
you really don’t want to pull this open trailer over 55. Part of it is that it’s a bumper-pull trailer
and it can get squirrely on ya. The
other part is that those horses probably don’t need a 60 mile-per-hour wind in
their faces.”
*
He’d feed them treats that I wouldn’t allow anyone else to
even think about giving them. I remember
him giving Annie a soft peppermint stick one time and a powdered donut (of all
things) another time. The day he gave
her the peppermint stick was the first time that she and I had made the
two-mile ride over to his house. She was
convinced that she was exhausted after such a long ride and having to carry me,
so I tied her to a branch in the front yard and went inside to visit. While Papaw and I were talking, I’d get up
every few minutes to glance out of the window to see if she was okay. Annie had this awful habit of pawing and “digging
a hole to China,” in Dad’s words, and I have gotten in more trouble with him
for her hole-digging in the last decade than I have for anything else. On one of these checks, I had to wave Papaw
over to look out the window at Annie, who had decided that she was too tired to
keep going and had managed to stretch out enough slack on her lead to lay down
in the yard, flat on her side, and go to sleep, saddle and all. I remember him laughing as we opened up the
door and yelled “What are you doing?!” at her. She raised her head and looked at us like a
guilty preschooler before jumping back up on her feet. Apparently his yard was as comfortable as his
lap.
*
There are so many more stories about Papaw that I just haven’t
been able to recall tonight that may find their way onto my blog in the future,
but I felt that these few deserved to be shared. I know that he was always there when I needed
him and he was certain to be sitting in front of the post office with his
little dog and his camera if we rode the horses in the Fourth of July parades
or out on his John Deere Gator helping us if it was time to move cattle across
the ranch. Every time I look at my
horses, at my saddle and my purple saddle blanket, I can’t help but think of
him. Even though the horsemanship
methods that I use were too “new fangled” for him to understand (he said), I
could tell that he took pride in my love of horses and the western tradition
that comes with being a horseman. So,
here’s to running the good race and finishing well, Papaw. I’m proud of you and I hope you’re proud of
me. Thank you for blessing me with my
love for horses and for being a strong, Christian man and father.
For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and
the time has come for my departure. I
have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the
faith. Now there is in store for me the
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me
on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his
appearing.
2 Timothy 4:6-8
I even have this
theory that God sends angels to cowboys in the form of good horses, so maybe he’s
run into a few familiar faces in the last few days.
