Zara Asked to Have A Last Word

My beloved mareʻs Zaraʻs story comes to a close

Itʻs been a wild time since last I checked in with you all, with Hurricane Hone blasting through for starters. But here we are again. Welcome to my new readers and welcome back to my faithful followers. I know I promised this week I would begin my young gelding Kūkūilamaʻs story after I took a detour on a more personal note last week. That will have to wait yet another week. This week Zaraʻs story comes to a close.

Six weeks ago when I introduced Hottie to all of you, I neglected to mention why I was bringing a third horse into my tiny herd. The simple answer is, Zara asked me to.

For those of you new to They Keep Telling Me I Should Write My Memoir, you might want to read the story of how, in 2002, I met Zara, my gray Arabian mare: When the Student is Ready….or reread it if you arenʻt sure you remember.

On the Fourth of July, Zara turned 28 years old, an advanced age for a horse who had a rough start in life. As aging often appears in animals, it happens very gradually, and then seemingly all at once. The arthritis in her hind legs worsened little by little until she rarely loped a few strides, let alone indulge in the playful galloping and bucking she used to enjoy with the herd. But her eye was bright and her enthusiasm for life undiminished. She continued to be a master in Equine Guided Education sessions.

As I described when I first began telling her story, Zara and I had a strong telepathic connection even before she was officially mine. As time went on, I rarely needed to rely on body language for our day to day communication. It was as if we always just understood what the other was thinking, moving in sync. One day this summer I turned Zara and Kūkūilama out on some good green grass near the barn, and as the gelding cavorted and teased, trying to get her to play, Zara walked over to me, looked into my eyes, and said, without words but in no uncertain terms, “Iʻm over it.” She was over babysitting, over being a lead mare, a position she had always relished. I had been scouting for a horse for about a year, but my logic was that if Kukui had another youngster to play with then whenever I had time to work with him I would not have to work off all that excess energy first.

Now I understood. I did not need two younger horses for her to mind. What we needed was a horse in the middle, a horse who would become a companion for Kūkūilama, a horse to ease the transition when Zara eventually made her transition. I chose a solid mare, in Hottieʻs case a mare who had already raised three foals of her own and was a good auntie in the larger herd.

What I did not know is how soon Zara would feel free to let go once Hottie arrived.

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I was a little surprised that when Hottie first came into the pasture, communicating her boundaries with Kūkūilama who had run up to her full of curiosity, Zara walked straight over to politely greet the humans who had brought Hottie, then dropped her head as she stood next to me and let out a huge sigh. She looked up the hill and watched, licking and chewing. I had done what she asked and she approved of my choice. There was no need for her to engage with Hottie - she simply ignored her that day. As the weeks went on Zara spent more and more of her time standing quietly by herself. She was losing weight, as she does when the grass gets dry in late summer, despite my supplementing the grass with a mash of alfalfa and senior pellets twice a day. Her appetite was good, she nickered to me repeatedly as she ate and I brushed her or sat quietly laughing at the white hen weaving around her feet picking at the fallen morsels.

So it was a surprise, although it should not have been a surprise, that when I drove through the gate to the pasture on the Monday morning that dawned sunny in blue sky after the last of the hurricane passed westward during the night, I saw the body of a white horse, technically a flea-bitten gray horse with the prized bloody shoulder marking splashed on her hip, a large white body on the ground beneath an olive tree planted oddly, randomly, in the middle paddock of a horse pasture in Hawaiʻi.

Ua hala ʻo Zara, the words coming to mind in ʻolelo Hawaiʻi rather than in English, as if to soften the blow.

I jumped out of my SUV and ran to the fence as Kūkūilama came calmly over to greet me. I am not sure which mare explained things to him, Zara or Hottie, but he acted as though he were a family member at a funeral, coming to offer a hug and condolences. Solemn, mature, attentive to the job at hand.

I climbed up the hill and crossed the middle paddock towards Zara. There had been no accident during the storm…it was clear she had just passed shortly before I arrived, with no signs of struggle. I gathered flowers to lay on her, saying a few words, before beginning the practical step of texting to find someone available on short notice to come with a backhoe, on a day when every piece of equipment on every nearby ranch and property was busy cleaning up and digging out after the damaging storm.

Then I noticed Hottie was still standing where I had first seen her that morning, in the upper paddock. Not grazing, just staring out into the mid-distance, her eyes half-closed. With a bit of a shock, I realized she was standing guard at the exact spot where Zaraʻs companion Double Rainbow is buried. I continued up the hill to join her. Looking from her viewpoint down at Zara, my gaze continued over Rainbowʻs resting place to pass over the mare Spiritʻs resting place…the three of them in a line. I shivered. How did Hottie know?

Hottie and Zara had not bonded, and still she was doing some kind of deep spiritual work, some kind of deep emotional processing of her own. Horses care about the collective, care for the collective, always attentive to the commonalities beyond personalities. I felt an urge to sit on the ground and followed my impulse. For the first time Hottie turned her head toward me. A moment later her front legs buckled and she laid down, closed her eyes, and slept next to me for about 15 minutes. I stayed still, in awe and gratitude for these amazing creatures in my life.

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My friends dropped whatever had been their plans for the day and were at the pasture with equipment a few hours later. Father and son, the son standing next to me as his dad expertly turned the backhoe to dig the grave, something he does for many humans in our community as well. He had similarly come to my aid when my beloved Weimaraner passed away earlier this year, and I knew that he arranged the four-leggeds in their graves with the same care he affords humans. He wants their rest to be peaceful is how he explains it. As the bucket lifted Zara, her beautiful Arab neck arched, still flexible. And as he lowered her onto the dirt, her front legs tucked themselves up, her back legs remaining outstretched, as if she were soaring over a jump - something she indeed had loved to do.

Born of desert lines, meant to run with the wind. As the storm traveled on, Zaraʻs spirit chose to leap after it.

And so her story ends.