Book Entry 162: 1983 Near Catastrophe

Larry and I were in front of our garage one afternoon admiring an antique car body.  Robin was riding her horse, Nena, on our front driveway.  She was slowly walking next to the palm trees.  For some reason, and without warning, Nena fell to her side.  Robin responded quickly enough to clear Nena’s body before she hit the ground.  Robin jumped to her feet with the reigns still in her hand.  I’ll never forget the look on her face when her eyes met mine.  Her face was an ashen color.  Within seconds of springing to her feet she staggered to the palm tree and puked. 

          We could only surmise Nena’s shoe had slipped a bit on the asphalt and she jerked.  In jerking she had over corrected her weight, lost her balance, and gone down.  It had never happened before and it never happened again. 

Even though Robin and Nena loved one another very much, even though robin knew Nena would never hurt her, and even though Robin escaped without injury I guess her subconscious was alarmed enough to know she could have been badly hurt.  The puking was over quickly.  A few tears of relief followed by many nose pats and soft words to comfort Nena.

  Larry and I tried to act as if it was not a big deal.  We didn’t want Robin to feel intimidated or lose her love of riding.  We turned our attention to the Model A body in the garage.  After a couple minutes we noticed Robin as she was swinging her leg over the saddle.  I called out to Robin telling her to be careful.  As she rode away I heard, “Okay, how long till dinner?”  

Dinner was about two hours later.  Robin took Nena for a long ride ending her afternoon brushing Nena and cleaning her hooves.  When she joined us in the kitchen the first thing she said was, “Nena’s just fine.”  After dinner, while everyone else was playing, Robin went back to sit and talk with Nena.  I honestly think Robin was trying to convince Nena she wasn’t mad at her for falling.  She didn’t want Nena’s feelings to be hurt!