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	Watering the Damned Old Horse by Connie Clark
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

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Watering the Damned Old Horse
by Connie Clark

The Key to Your Character

One of our
Beginning Astrology Lectures

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Nearly forty years of marriage had brought to my husband and me the usual ups and downs most couples experience. Our three children blessed us with all the joy and tears that accompany any lively family. Our careers sometimes met with spectacular success, along with an occasionally painful loss. I thought we could handle anything.

Nothing, however, prepared us for the sudden onslaught of catastrophes we experienced. The back-breaking straws seemed to fall all over each other, beginning with Bob's diagnosis and surgery for cancer.

Surgery for the cancer appeared to be successful. This trauma, however, was only the first. With mind-blowing rapidity, that first surgery was soon followed by a series of three others, each requiring a long, painful recovery. All this resulted in the loss, at age sixty, of the career to which Bob had devoted nearly forty years, as well as our home, and almost our marriage.

With the blessed help of our children and our parents, we had coped fairly well with these hurtful losses. Our daughter's family welcomed us into their home, helping to make a temporary residence out of half of her family room. Our adult children helped us with gifts of money, physical and emotional support, and especially, unwavering love.

Bob began to recover his health, and even started to plan his return to his beloved field of serving the developmentally disabled. He knew he still had much to contribute, and, if possible, expected to work into his seventies.

We were devastated when the next straw fell. We had believed we were on the way up when a semi-truck cut too quickly back into the right lane and pushed Bob off the Interstate into a deep ditch. We knew we were fortunate he wasn't killed when the car flipped and rolled! We were very grateful for that.

However, that knowledge didn't heal the broken bones and fractured spine; the cuts and lacerations, ruined possessions, and the destroyed, badly needed car. Perhaps worst of all, despite future efforts, the wreck had effectively finished Bob's dearly held plans to resume his career. Gratitude was hard to come by in those days.

How did I handle all this? Not very well, at times. I was frightened for our future. The loss of Bob's CEO job had led us to the shame of bankruptcy. Suddenly, our income was Social Security Disability. My husband was in constant pain, and needed emotional and physical help I didn't feel able (or sometimes willing) to give. I've never been a patient woman, and nursing was not my idea of how to spend my days and nights. I was tired, and his many needs caused me to feel so trapped. We had always lived lives of independence, enjoying each other's company, yet never expecting each other to always be present. I was accustomed to coming and going as I pleased, and now it seemed that Bob had an almost pathological need to know where I was going and when I would be back. He would, as he had never done before, ask me why I was going to go somewhere. I deeply resented feeling that he expected me, after all these years, to answer to him.

Our marriage was in serious jeopardy, my own health began to fail, and it seemed that nothing was ever going to be good again. I was wrong. It is good again, maybe even better than ever. How did we get from there to here?

Because, many years ago, my ninety-pound Mother picked up the ax to break the ice on the horse tank so that a horse she hated could get a drink of water.

When I was five or so, Daddy surprised us all by announcing that the winter had been rough, and the preceding summer and fall had not been easy either. Therefore, he announced, he had decided to take a "sabbatical" to the hot spring waters of New Mexico,

Mother listened quietly. She knew that while Daddy was basking in hot springs, she would be left alone on the farm to care for us kids, her elderly parents in town and our uncle's horse. She didn't really mind any of it except the horse. He wasn't good-natured, and Mother didn't like him. Further, she never got a good answer when she asked why he was corralled at our place. Daddy had always seen that he had food and water, but now he was asking her to take over the horse's daily care.

Of course, nobody expected a blizzard. In those days, experienced eyes and noses were our "Weatherchannel", but this storm blew in with sudden and devastating speed. High winds whipped heavy, blinding snow with a fury, accompanied by the zero or below temperatures that would mean certain death to anyone caught out in it. Then, when the storm finally passed, it left behind huge piles of snow covered with thick ice.

The morning of the second day, the wind and cold was still dangerous, but the snow had lessened somewhat. I walked into the kitchen for a snack, and there was Mother wrapping up to go outside! She was pulling on boots over her warmest socks, and covering herself with all the warm clothes she could put onto her tiny body. I watched, stunned, as she pulled Daddy's bib overalls on top of all the rest.

Stranger still, Mother was muttering! When I unwisely asked what she had said, my mild, peace-loving Mother whirled to lay a glare on me I had never seen before, then answered between clenched teeth: "What am I saying?" I'm saying that your uncle's horse has to have water. Somebody has to chop the ice on the tank. I've no choice. The ice has to be chopped or the damned old horse will die".

She laughs at the story today, but I think it's still a little forced. Mother is now a delightful and wise ninety-four years old, hard of hearing, and nearly blind. Yet, she's full of glee as she drives her candy-apple-red electric wheelchair around the nursing home where she has lived for several years. Her friends among the other residents and staff simply step out of her way. She is aware of that, and appreciates that they generously allow her the independence so vital to a woman like her.

We're friends, Mother and I. More than relatives. We've chopped a lot of ice together. We've shared losses, my father and stepfather, old family friends, school friends of mine, others. We've joyfully taken a few long trips, just the two of us laughing our way down dangerous mountain highways. Sometimes, we've shared our feelings about the greatest pain a mother can experience, the death of her oldest child, my only sister, and the tragic death of her handsome young grandson.

I'm sixty-four now, and I know that the tough lessons learned from this remarkable woman have sometimes been all that has kept me moving and doing what needed done during these years of turmoil and pain. Learning to "chop the ice" when necessary has probably saved my sanity. It's put things into perspective for me, and provided a reality check. My heart is now free of the bitter resentment and disappointment I once felt. Maybe best of all, learning to share our forced "retirement" has actually improved our marriage.

There may be even tougher times ahead, who knows, but I know we will survive whatever comes since "I have to chop the ice or the damned horse will die" has become my mantra.

Sometimes it takes years to really grasp what has happened to your life.
~ Wilma Rudolph ~
Born June 23, 1940

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Last updated May 24th, 2004

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