Every Ending brings a New Beginning

It always fascinates me that the Universe seems to have a plan… We don’t always understand this plan and possibly sometimes we don’t even like the plan but that doesn’t stop it from happening.

As I kissed goodbye to Melody for the last time having spent a lovely 6 years together at Ash Rescue Centre I went over to spend time with the remaining herd. Her best friend Buddy was deep in grief. Horses all react differently, some move on straight away, some want to spend time with their lost friend but in Buddy’s case he just stopped.

That is the only word I can describe for him. He stopped eating, he stopped calling, he stopped caring who was around him, he stopped walking over when we entered the barn or the field and he stopped being…well…him. In the past 6 months he had lost his two closest pals, Smuggler and Melody and he looked like he was giving up.

A few days before Melodys departure I had taken a call from a lady who due to some unfortunate circumstances had to find a home for her elderly mare. I take a LOT of calls (Emails, texts, messages and visits) from people who would like me to take their horses but as a rescue most of them do not fit our criteria (there are many Equine Retirement homes in the area) apart from this mare.

After initially saying “no we are full” I knew she may be just what we (and she) needed. So a few days later Azmarr arrived. On older mare who had obviously breed a fair few foals in her day, with a sunken back, arthritic legs, puffy eyes and an old swollen belly she walked quietly down to meet her new friends and started grazing alongside Buddy as if she had always been here.

I have moments when I feel sad to have filled Melodys place so quickly but then I realise that this new mare needed that space much more than our memories and grief. The ‘plan’ had brought her to us and us to her at exactly the right time.