The big truck just pulled away with him inside.  No black clothes, no prayers, only silent tears.  It seemed a rather unceremonious ending to a life so long lived.  Thirty seven years is, after all, a pretty long life for an animal…remarkable even.  I remember a comment Dr. Janssen, a veterinarian who was not our regular vet, made during an emergency call once.

“What’s this horse’s breeding?” 

“Uh, I can’t think of his Dam and Sires name off the top of my head, but I think it was…”

“Is he Cody bred?”

“Yes, his sire was Dan Cody or something like that.”

“Yeah, those Cody bred horses live a long time…”

That conversation was over ten years ago.  Even Dr. Janssen retired and sold his practice.  And yet Crackers seemed to go on, oblivious of the fact that time was racing by.  Someone forgot to give him the memo that horses can quit hanging on around twenty-five or so.  He seemed happy and just kept going.  We certainly didn’t have any complaints.  About the time he hit thirty, a couple kids appeared on the farm…babies actually.  And Crackers waited around to give another generation a chance to get to know the sweet old gentleman that he was. 

Twenty four years is a long time to be a part of a family and that is what Crackers has been, a part of our family.  Crackers came  into my life when I was 19 and living in my childhood home.  My step-dad, Paul, relented to our pleas to have a horse.  Crackers was 13 at the time, middle aged (so we thought) and our first venture into equine husbandry.  He was the perfect first horse, gentle, easy going, sweet natured, and a little mischievous.  On one occasion at a family picnic I remember my aunt wanting to ride.  After some cursory instruction on guiding and stopping, she mounted and took the reins.  Off they trotted to the edge of the yard, our confidence in Crackers as the perfect family packer confirmed…until they turned back toward the house.  The sight of my Tia screaming Whoa, Whoa at the top of her lungs as Crackers galloped full speed toward his stall is permanently etched in my memory (and everyone elses who was there!)  Miraculously she managed to stay on and any doubts I may have had about guardian angels were banished at that moment!  The fact that she remained atop during the hard right-hand turn around the house is what confirmed it for me, though her tenacious white knuckle grip on the saddle horn may have played a role in her maintaining her seat.  This story has risen to legend status in our family and hardly a summer picnic passes without someone recollecting Tia Mella’s harrowing ride and the ensuing laughter that always comes with near brushes of danger.

 It was shortly after that time that Crackers moved from my parent’s home to the farm where we are now and where he spent the last twenty years of his life.  Paul jokes that before I pulled out of the driveway with the horse in the trailer, he was out pulling up the corral fence.  But I know that no one had more affection for the old fellow than he did.

Over the years, legions of families and friends have petted and rode the old buckskin gelding.  Pasture-mates came and went…Chevy, Chief, Gambler, Billy and finally young Bailey, his last friend.  And Crackers finally started to give in to the inevitable ticking of time.  He lost his sight, and gradually became more and more feeble.  His teeth began to wear out and he needed special food and hay.  Bailey, despite his great size, treated him with patient gentleness as he would slowly walk his circles looking for his food and water through his clouded vision.  Every night, when Crackers came in the barn for his special senior supper, Bailey waited beside his window, his constant companion.

I think Bailey knew Cracker’s time was near even before we did.  This week, instead of his usual boisterousness at feeding time, the big, young gelding acted especially subdued.  When Crackers went down two nights ago and Todd and I struggled to pull him to his feet,  Bailey stood near, watching intently, as if willing the old fellow to come back to us.  We did get him up, and we were thankful that he ate and drank with his usual appetite, but he was also weak and unsteady.  We knew it wouldn’t be long when Crackers refused to be led inside to his stall.  The last several days had been unusually cold and the single digit, night-time temperatures must have exacted a severe toll on his old body.  On Friday morning we found him down again, breathing steadily, but with his lashes half-lidding his dim, blue, sightless eyes.  It was heart wrenching to watch him as he lay there unable to muster the strength to rise from the cold ground that imprisoned him.  I wept uncontrollably as I tried to pull him from the indignity of the mud caused by his lack of body control.  I put blankets over his cold shivering body and hay under his head and neck in a vain attempt to bring comfort to my old friend.   Bailey stood close and nuzzled his head.

The Fates for animal souls must have been in a mood to toy with us mortals on that day.  When I called our regular vet to come, I learned that he was at a veterinary conference in Indianapolis all day.  Five subsequent calls to other local veterinary practices yielded the same response and I was beginning to feel desperate.  I finally located a vet who could come, and mercifully, he was able to come right away for which I am eternally grateful.  Ironically, it was one of the vets who had bought Dr. Janssen’s practice.   

If animal doctors take courses in bedside manner, Dr. Thompson surely aced that one.  He and his assistant couldn’t have been kinder and treated Crackers with great care and gentleness.  And when his tired body refused their efforts to bring him to his feet, they supported our choice to send him on his way to a better place.

This is not the first time I have been present as an animal friend passes into the afterlife.  We have let go of two dear dogs in the recent few years and I was there both times.  It is a hard thing to do, and a harder thing not to do.  After Dr. Thompson did his part, I noticed something that I had also seen when Daisy and Brock took flight.  As Crackers took his final breaths on this earth, his four legs made minute movements, one after the other, in a running motion, the way you often see in napping dogs.  When our pets are full of life and we see this, we laugh and say they are dreaming of chasing squirrels or some other happy idea.  But when our friends are passing through the earthly veil, what do we make of such a thing? 

I am sure someone can give me a rational scientific explanation for such a phenomenon, but I don’t care to know it, at least not for awhile.  I want to believe that the spirit of my longtime friend was finally taking flight, free from the cold, atrophy and pain that had been holding him to the ground.  And as his spirit took to flight, his old body said “wait, wait! I can’t keep up, but I’m trying.”  And his spirit turned and said, “don’t try, let go, you cannot come with me now.  I am running free.  I am running without body or saddle or rider clinging on.  I am going to a place where where I cannot be stopped, full gallop ahead.  I am going to my stall, I am headed home.”