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| A picture of Bailey that Vincent took with my camera |
I owned Bailey for 18 years. As much as I loved Bailey I can't deny the fact that she had several faults. When I first started riding her she liked to rear up and walk with me on her back. I am sure it looked cool if you were watching but if you were the one on her it was not fun. It once took me 3 hours to get her to ride off my parents property and down the road. One of Bailey's former owners once offered to buy me any horse I wanted if I would send her to Dekalb (horse slaughter facility). Apparently Bailey didn't treat his daughter very well. She was ornery and their is no denying that! To me that was part of her charm.
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| Vincent took this picture of me and Bailey |
We spent a lot of hours camping and trail riding together. We may have caused a little bit of trouble along the way but we had fun. Tiffany and I used to go trail riding together. Her horse is April and I had Bailey. Bailey didn't get along with a lot of other horses, but she didn't seem to mind April. Occasionally on trail rides we may have unhooked a few back cinches and removed a few bridles from other horses. In return there was some retaliation and Bailey would bite at my friends' horses when they would try to get me back. It would usually work for awhile, but then I would end up with my saddle off, or my bridle off, and/or my horse missing. If my bridle was pulled off Bailey would get all hyped up, I would jump off to fix the bridle and Bailey would run off all the way back to the trailer and wait for me.
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| Bailey girl! |
Bailey loved me, but she was all about self preservation and if that meant leaving me in the dust she didn't seem to mind. She left me on the side of the road in a field and ran the mile home when I was in high school. I am not sure if a bee stung her or what, I was sitting on her day dreaming and then next thing I knew I had face planted in a freshly planted field. I watched her run the whole way home and on my slow and embarrassing walk back home. One of my dogs stayed with me and the other ran back home with Bailey. It was embarrassing because the road I grew up on wasn't that busy but there happened to be three cars on the road that watch the whole thing unfold.
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| Bailey, Brad and Cecilia |
One of Bailey's best traits was that no matter where we were riding she knew exactly how to get back to camp or the horse trailer. It could be in the middle of the night or broad day light, it didn't matter. You could ride out in the middle of a state park you had never been too and just let go of her reins and she would get you right back to the trailer without taking any wrong turns. It was amazing, and her ability to find "home" saved me more than once.
The morning of the 1st we all played with Bailey in the yard for awhile. The kids were unaware of what the day was going to bring but I wanted them to have one last chance to say goodbye to Bailey. They had to know something was up because over the last few months I kept telling them that she was super duper old and was going to die and go to heaven someday. When we took the kids to see Bailey before she was buried Vincent had to ask how she was laying in the field if she was in heaven, so we had to have a discussion about spirits. I think he understood but that kid keeps me on my toes.
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| Joel brushing Bailey |
Everyone has handled Bailey's death differently. My plan was to just not talk about if for a few weeks and spend a little time by myself crying and maybe talk about it in a few weeks. I literally sent my mom a text telling her and specifically said "do not call me." Brad was on board with that plan minus the crying. Vincent apparently didn't get the memo on how we deal with death. All he wanted to do for the first two days was talk about Bailey and why I couldn't fix her. It killed me! At one point I told Brad that we were literally beating a dead horse and I couldn't take it anymore. Of course we sucked it up and followed Vincent's lead (including making up a song about Bailey) but I did not want to. It was at least 5 days before he stopped saying he missed Bailey once an hour. He still talks about how he misses her but it is once a day and he either says "I really miss Bailey" or "It is really sad that we only have three horses." The way he talks about Bailey is like she was the best horse ever (she was for me for many years) and like he got to ride her all the time. I am glad he will compare all horses to her for the rest of his life, but he mostly played in the yard with her and was never allowed to take her on a trail ride because she was ornery and not a kid's horse. He is planning on getting another horse this spring that is just like Bailey, that he is going to name Bailey. He has a little treasure box from Vacation Bible School that he keeps special things in and it now has a piece of Bailey's mane. It made him a little less sad and he slept with it for the first few nights.
We didn't think Joel really understood what was going on, but then he was out of sorts for the rest of the week. At the end of the week he wanted Vincent's box with Bailey's mane, so I found him his own treasure box and gave him a lock of Bailey's tail. He has seemed to be a lot better since then, but it is Joel and he can't articulate his feelings as well as Vincent.
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| Me, Bailey and Vincent explaining something to Bailey about the ball |
Bailey will forever be missed around here.
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