A Broken Body and a Healed Heart
My mistake was in pushing forward despite all the signals that screamed “retreat.”
My daughter, her friend and I decided to take our horses across a creek to the trails on the other side, even though all three of our horses were refusing to plunge down the muddy embankment to the creek. We should have listened to their instincts. Instead, we sought a shallow area and urged them forward with the intention of wading along until we reached the crossover that led to the trails.
Once in the creek the horses were excited, pawing the red muddy water until it swirled and splashed and soaked us all. There were several clumps of brambles resembling beaver dams and a lot of fallen logs, but we negotiated these and continued to plow through the muck.
I was in the lead, and suddenly, in what I had thought was shallow water, my horse plunged to her belly, front legs submerged in thick, red mud. She panicked and started bucking as I struggled to calm her. Her frenzied bucking only escalated, and despite my attempts to cling to her back I went over her head. That would have been okay, though messy, except that in her wild efforts to free herself she trampled me.
I instinctively curled into a ball, then tried to crawl to safety away from the pounding hooves and thrashing body. My first thought after falling had been, Oh no! I’m going to get muddy! My next thought was “This is bad. I might not get out of this alive!”
I struggled up, only to be knocked down again by the weight of the mare crashing against my head, the collision with her belly slamming my neck forward. Glancing up, glimpsing blue sky and clouds beyond a network of branches arching over the creek, I whispered, “God, please help me out of this!”
The mare curled her body in another high buck. Seizing that window of opportunity to scramble from beneath her, I rushed to the hill flanking the creek, a steep and slippery slope. I grasped frantically at jutting twigs, but there was no way to pull myself up the embankment away from the horses.
My daughter jumped from her horse, let him go and ran towards me. Her friend Amy was trying to catch her own horse. By now all three horses were loose and scrambling madly back and forth through the creek, trying as hard as we were to find a way out. My horse, having gotten free of the mud, came close to me as if she would heave her 1,000-pound body up that same slick embankment I was trying to climb.
I pressed myself to the wall of mud, willing her to go away. My daughter, hugging the muddy cliff, screamed for Amy to leave the horses alone and get away before she was trampled. Then all at once the horses were gone, thundering away down the narrow creek.
I bent over, knowing I was badly hurt. My daughter, tearful, kissed my face and begged me to sit down, but I knew we had to struggle out of the river and get to the other side. No one would see us or rescue us here. We made our tortuous way, my daughter clutching my arm as we slogged through the creek to the slippery edge our horses had plunged down earlier. We managed to climb this gentler slope and were met by riders who had spotted our three riderless, mud-caked horses barreling back to the barn.
I laid down, my body battered, covered in mud, blouse ripped to shreds, while the owner of the boarding stable went for a van. The ride back to the barn felt rickety and wild as we bumped and lurched crazily across fields and creeks. My head rested on a small plastic cushion and I sipped juice from a box with a straw while my daughter hovered close, tears striping her face.
A week later I was still in bed, my body covered in horseshoe-shaped bruises. Stiff and sore, I refused to go to a doctor because I wanted nothing more than to sleep. My husband says I’m more stubborn than a man about seeing doctors, but I stayed in bed and slept for a solid week, bruises throbbing, unable to lift my head.
What no one else realized was that my emotions as well as my body were broken and shattered. A period of depression had preceded the accident. I had taken it hard that my favorite aunt, the one I’m named for, had died. I had also been unable to sell any of my writing. Rejections littered my office, and what do you do when you’re unable to succeed at a life-long goal?
In the face of death and disappointment, riding had been a saving grace. I had always loved horses, and being able to saddle my mare and head for the trails dispelled the power of loss and rejection.
But now I knew deep in my heart that I would never ride again. I would not be able to get back in the saddle and shake off my fears. I had been thrown before and had ridden again, unperturbed. But this time was different. I could feel the difference in every fiber of my bruised and battered body. A horse can sense both confidence and fear and knows the mood of the rider, maybe better than the rider. I would not be able to feel confident again.
It seemed as if everything I cared about had been stripped away. Without my riding, without my writing, with the new awareness of vulnerability that death of a loved one brings, my dark, despairing thoughts were of loss and failure.
But as these thoughts wreaked havoc on my emotions, my husband positioned my pillow and brought me heating pads and cleaned the house. Friends brought dinner. My children tiptoed in each morning to kiss me softly on the cheek before going to school. Slowly, as my broken body healed, their love began to heal my broken emotions. What had been important before became unimportant now.
In Joni Tada’s book Secret Strength, she talks about a time when resentment welled up in her because, paralyzed, she was unable to work. Then she realized that God wasn’t as interested in her work as he was in her reaction to not being able to do it. Her response was more important than her accomplishment.
John Milton didn’t compose his most famous work, Paradise Lost, until after he had become blind in both eyes. At first he railed against his inability to work because of blindness, but finally, concluding that God didn’t need his feeble effort, he wrote his famous words, “They also serve who only stand and wait.”
As I spent those days in bed, I waited. Maybe there would be some revelation about what I should do next. Slowly new thoughts took root and my persective began to shift. I had value, whether I succeeded or not. My accomplishments or lack of them did not define me. I could grieve over loss and still find joy.
I had mistakenly believed the world needed my words; that writing was my calling and my reason for existence. I had thought my life would dissolve into mediocrity if I didn’t succeed.
Horseback riding had helped me camouflage feelings of disappointment and loss, but stripped of that outlet, I was forced to face my disappointments head on. Could I be as happy with failure as I could with success? Could my response to life be more important than the results of my efforts? Could I discover joy after grief? If, as Milton said, God didn’t need my feeble efforts, could I be content to serve in whatever arena I found myself, even if it wasn’t the arena I chose?
Almost getting killed showed me the truth about what was important and what wasn’t. I was loved and I could love. I had failed but I could still work, and serve, and try again. I had lost someone I loved, but I wore her name proudly and carried her memory in my heart. The universe might not need my feeble efforts, but this did not negate the significance of my journey.
Slowly I healed, my bruises faded, physical therapy and a good chiropractor helped my injured neck. I didn’t ride again, but I approached my work with renewed enthusiasm and new freedom. My self-esteem was no longer tied up in the failure or success of an endeavor.
I knew my most important work was to love, to enjoy each day’s adventures and appreciate each day’s gifts. Those gifts could be as subtle as the feather-light brush of a child’s kiss, but they were there if only I would embrace them.
A Broken Body and a Healed Heart
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