Okay, it's like this......

The first things I remember wanting in my early life were pancakes and horses. The order of importance probably varied on a day by day basis. But despite my early years, I held a strong belief that Trigger was too much flash and the true hero was Dale Evan's buckskin bay. Though most would have to agree that the shining star of horse heroes would have to be Flicka. At least that was the case in 1960.

The inevitable happened. With age came pancakes made of nothing more then Bisquick and the only horses I got to spend time with were on merry-go-rounds, pony rides and a wonderful pony by the name of Belle. She belonged to my uncle and she was always content to just stand by the fence with me. I was convinced that we could read each other"s minds.

Kept growing. I forgot how good pancakes could be. Growing up is about survival.

I turned out to be a bit of a hippy child crossed with the Jesus movement and with a social conscience about a mile wide. I got my first horse as a four month old a year before I was to leave home. He was given away when I went to school. I found out when I came home to an empty pasture. It was made harder because we had been able to read each other's minds.

Got married. That was followed by having three daughters and many adventures. The adventures involved more imagination then miles, but a good time was had by all. The girls left home and then my Dad died of congestive heart failure. That's when a great deal of introspection occurred and I realized that I still hadn't figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up.

This sucks. Ends up that when you're worried about what you want to be "when you grow up" during your mid-life crisis, you tend to screw yourself up a bit. As I have waded through this morass there have been some defining moments. Weddings, of course, graduations, people that enriched our lives..... some that didn't. Then two months after his fiftieth birthday, my husband, Mac was diagnosed with leukemia. Guess you could say this is where it got interesting.

This is when I found a quote somewhere. Don't remember who said it or how it went exactly, but it said that when laying on their deathbeds, no one regretted what they did do. They just regretted what they didn't do. Considering the possibility of a deathbed being just three feet away from me, this philosophy had a good deal of clout. Mac went into remission. His leukemia relapsed three years later. He had a bone marrow/stem cell transplant last July 31st. He had complications. He is better now.

I don't care what I become when I grow up anymore. And I am going to do my damndest, to not go into the ground with any regrets.

I make really good pancakes. I have a welsh mountain pony named Chloe. I have a haflinger horse named Pip (Philipa)..... and I do believe that we are starting to be able to read one another's minds.

louie