Back on Track ‘Horse Therapy’: AnnMarie Brockhouse

AnnMarie shares the story of how a special mare helped carry her spirit in the aftermath of a heartbreaking miscarriage.

From AnnMarie:

Fancy

“I said I would do horse chores for you.” My husband called from the kitchen.

“No!  I’m fine!  And I want to see Fancy.” I yelled back slamming the door behind me.

I wasn’t fine. I was hurting. My body still ached from the miscarriage. But worse was the heartbreak. It shredded my spirit. I had lost the baby I had been longing for and would never be fine again!

As I trudged down the driveway to our little barn and pasture a familiar motherly nicker greeted me. It was my long time equine partner and best friend, Fancy. She waited for me at the closest corner of the fence, ears flicking as I headed her way.

I slipped through the fence and hugged her warm neck, fresh tears flowing down my face. She turned wrapping her head around my back and pulling me in for our special hug.

“Why?” I asked my faithful friend. “Why?”

Together we stood; her soft breath on my cheek and my hands tangled in her mane. I told her about everything, the feelings I could not share with anyone else. I told her of my guilt that I had done something wrong causing me to lose this baby. I cried out my fears about never carrying to term. I told her about the hate I felt when I saw other mothers with newborns. And about how unfair it was that the world kept going without morning my loss.

I cried for Fancy too. I sorrowed that her amazing mothering instincts would never be shown to her own foal. I cried that she would never know that joy. And about how unfair it was that she had suffered at she did when she was young, before a rescue brought us together.

Fancy just stood with me each time I grieved through the hours, days, weeks and months that followed. Her presence was always both sympathetic and soothing. I clung to the reality of her as I struggled to regain a sense of “normal” life.

Each day got a little better. And she shared it all with me. The little moment of hope the day I whispered to her that I was pregnant again; my nervousness before each ultrasound or with each strange sensation; my awkwardness around the barn as my belly grew and my fears the night before I delivered.

And then she celebrated my joy greeting me from the same spot on the fence line to meet my beautiful baby girl with her same motherly nicker and soft nuzzles!

A few years later Fancy gives rides and hugs to that same little girl and her younger brother. She is always watching over them with the same care as she would have tended to foals of her own.

And she is still there for me, waiting in that special spot. And so very often I sneak away to slip through the fence to just share a moment with her…my horse, my therapist, my friend!

Go Back on Track, and Go Riding!