Real life (and another ride)

This is going to be partly not horse related, but tough.

My father died on Monday. It's been a strange couple of months since my mother first told me that my step-mother called her saying that he had two weeks to live.

I hadn't talked to my father in 14 years. That basically boiled down to our immense stubbornness. Neither was going to bend first, and besides I was tired of being told that everything that I thought was wrong, everything that I did was wrong, and everything I liked was obscene and in some way satanic. He was also always 5 years from dying of stress.

Fast forward 14 years, and I found a tiny little guy huddled in a wheelchair, with slurred speech thanks to a couple of strokes. He couldn't do anything for himself anymore, and playing the piano and writing were behind him. He was brilliant on the piano and brilliant in general.

What surprised me most was to find out that he had become a nice guy. The first thing he did was apologize profusely for everything he did or imagined that he did. I told him it was all water under the bridge, which sent him crying. I had only seen him cry once before, when recounting our family's holocaust experience. Yeah, he was old enough to remember WWII.

I told him that I'm a vegetarian now, which surprised him, and that I shop at a Natural Food Co-op and buy organic mainly because of his influence. He said that at least he had done something right and something good had come of his life. Sigh. Of course we talked horses, and I went into insulin resistance which I didn't have to dumb down because I know that this was the kind of thing that he had been talking about in people for years.

During one visit I plunked out some horrid renditions of Fur Elise and The Entertainer on his piano as he and Rick listened. I couldn't remember how either went - I was trying to remember Fur Elise from what I mentally sang when I played it back in the 80s (mostly that old McDonalds commercial with the piano recital), and with The Entertainer I was trying to summon muscle memory. Neither went well, but at the end he was happy and said that he really enjoyed it. What?

Our last visit was on Sunday, after another stroke and a brain hemorrhage. He was unable to do anything but breathe and open and close his eyes. He had stopped eating and drinking on Friday, and we were basically just waiting for the inevitable. Still, it was terrible. I had a really hard time handling the reality of him existing in that state.

Now, it's over. The funeral's tomorrow.

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Oddly, I hadn't been in a horse mood, and didn't see them since Sunday morning when they got their trim. Rick was off today (bereavement), and I've been off since Wednesday (guilt took me in on Tuesday, and they basically sent me home around 1), so we went for a ride this morning since it was a window in the thunderstorm forecast.

We went trail riding, and Peanut did well. He had very little impulsion, so it's something I'll have to talk over with Denise in case I'm doing something wrong with my new riding position. I cantered today for the first time since the lesson, and it was great since I had full contact with my legs the entire time. He threw something very bouncy at me one time as he slowed down (a little trot?), but I ended up standing up in my stirrups and it was ok.

At one point, Gene was leading and walked beside a little deer family. He saw them before they ran off (the cute little fawn!), but once they did run he took a second then spooked. He spun around and started running at Peanut and me, who at that point were probably a good 10 yards back. Peanut startled a little - not even a jump in place, more like his head shot up and he twitched - when the deer took off, but took everything else wonderfully. He stood there, solid, as Gene went through all of that. Rick was able to pull Gene up about halfway towards us, dismounted, and Peanut remained standing.

Somewhere along the line he turned into an awesome trail horse. :) My only real problem with him is that he gets nervous when he's left behind, but he doesn't go into a blind panic so it's not too bad.

I'm so proud of him!