A couple of days ago I was reading about a leading Australian equestrian, now training and competing in Europe, who, after taking her champion horse to a medical clinic for a routine visit, had to make a drastic maneuver to avoid a car that pulled out directly in front of her.
Her evasive action resulted in the horse trailer tipping over and her beloved animal being so catastrophically injured that the vet, able to arrive immediately, had to euthanize him on the spot.
One week earlier this same young woman, 33, found that her breast cancer had returned from an initial diagnosis seven years earlier.
Wham. How can one even think about moving forward after an emotional collision as this?
I don’t know her, Hayley Beresford, from Adam, nor she me, but I felt compelled to send her an email of sympathy and prayers. I am so very hoping this message, this wish for peace, from the other side of the world, will give her some kind of comfort amidst the heartache.
Perhaps it’s because I’ve been very much on the receiving end of this that I felt the need to reach out to others, in some small way, to help complete the circle of giving. This past week has been a worrying one indeed with our beloved terrier, Bonnie, remaining critically ill and requiring desperate trips to the emergency clinic at midnight, hearing an earful of grim suspicions all beginning with the dreaded ‘C’. What has buoyed us up during this frightening time is the countless emails and Facebook messages, all offering prayers of healing and goodwill. Honestly, it makes the tears come to know how good and kind people really are. And peace came with each note read.
But peace fell about my feet and faith flagged with each scrap of negative news concerning a blood test or physical examination. My vet is good and kind and competent in presenting each potential scenario. It was all I could do one evening, after lying Bonnie, lethargic and showing no appetite, cushioned against the armrest of the sofa, to leave her side and take a walk around the farm to clear my head and heart.
Gripping the pasture gate firmly with both hands to check my emotions, I remembered reading somewhere that “when you have problems the size of mountains, don’t concentrate on the mountains, focus on ‘the mountain-mover.’” In almost a forlorn manner, I prayed for my dog, but didn’t think to pray for peace.
It came anyway.
Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I spotted a pair of wood doves fly across the small field and land on the fence that skirts one side of the driveway.
“That’s a sweet sign, God,” I thought, as I scratched the ears of Teddy, our donkey, who wandered up for a cuddle. Opening the gate, I proposed to walk towards them, about the distance of five acres, just to see if they really were doves when one of them suddenly left its mate, flew directly toward me and alighted on the branch of a massive oak, directly above my head – just long enough for me to make my confirmation, then flew back from whence it came. Perching back on the rail of the fence for just a moment, it then, joined by its mate, took flight and returned to the woods. Like a child tucked into bed by the loving hands of his mother, I felt nearly drowsy with relief.
I don’t know what lies before us, but I know we’re being watched over.
And that means everything.