A Lost Pet

When I was young I had at least a couple pets die, but there is that I remember clearly as my first experience of death. It happened when I was about 5 or 6 and it was with a horse named Eagle.

I’ve been riding horses since before I could walk, but the first horse I got to ride all by myself was called Eagle. He was about 18 when I started riding him which is pretty old for a horse. He had seen just about everything and so my parents felt pretty comfortable with me riding him because he wasn’t going to spook or do anything to cause me to fall off. I remember one of the first week-long pack trips that we took I rode Eagle. At the beginning of the trail there was a bridge that we all had to cross and all the horses were freaking out and none of them would cross it, except of course Eagle. I rode him for a couple of years and we really struck up a close bond.

In the winter we don’t ride, because the snow in the mountains gets too deep to go anywhere so typically any horse that isn’t going to make it through the winter is put down in the fall after riding for that year is over. When we were younger our parents never told us, when or which horses were going to be put down in the fall. As a result of this my first experience of death was a little different. I wasn’t around the horses much in the winter, so it wasn’t until spring that I noticed that I hadn’t seen Eagle for quite some time. When I asked my mom where he was she told me that he had gotten too old and dad had sent him to horse heaven. I was sad that he was gone, but my parents had constructed horse heaven to be a much better place than Earth so I was satisfied with that answer. Since then I have had horses, cats and dogs die and each has affected me in a different way. When a pet dies another usually takes it place, but each pet is unique and can never be completely replaced. Parents try to shield children from the reality of death, but eventually we all must face this part of the life cycle.