Count your blessings
After my last blog (I used to be nice), I received many comments and questions. First, I realized I should perhaps write a few blogs on caregiving. Then while answering some questions, I also shared the story of loading my 3-year-old filly, Noble Grace, to come home from Nemo, SD. From the responses I received, I thought I would share it more widely.
The morning I was leaving, I needed to get my three horses—Bing, Knicker, and Noble Grace—loaded so our dog, Clyde, and I could get to Rapid City Hospital to pick up Matt, my husband, and head home.
I was more than a little unhappy with the idea of them releasing Matt with a mid-line in his arm. Then, Noble Grace decided she was not going to load. Bing and Knicker had hopped right in as usual, but Noble Grace was having none of it. As she is young and in training, I would normally just assume this will take awhile—and that I am even more stubborn than she is. But I needed to get Matt picked up. I had told the doctors when I would be there for all their final care instructions.
Thinking I needed a new and better plan, I headed to the cab with Noble Grace in tow to grab my phone. I thought I would call one of the farriers I knew out there. Suddenly, I felt I should ask the LORD, so I sent up a prayer asking for an angel.
Just then, a white pick-up with duallies stopped and a diminutive guy with an almost Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes hopped out. He asked if I needed help.
I just stared. I had been thinking that someone about 6’3” with cowboy boots would be a good answer to my prayer. The words, “Are you a horse trainer?” popped out.
He said, “I don’t look like one,” smiled, and added, “This will take 15 minutes.”
I handed him Noble Grace.
It took an hour and a half and some help from me, but in she went.
After closing the trailer door, I turned to him and said, “I never did get your name.”
He didn’t answer, so I told him I’d been praying for an angel when he showed up. At that, he smiled, hopped in his pick-up, and drove away.
I’m not sure how to relate this back to work. Though I do know that through the years there have been times when the team has worked all night, when we didn’t know how we’d pull off an effect, when the film got scratched, etc… and each and every time, the team came through and the project came together brilliantly.
My mom used to tell me to Count My Blessings, and then she’d hum the song she grew up hearing my grandma sing. This last year has felt especially hard—with Matt having a brain bleed and sepsis, being in the hospital for 48 days, therapy 3 to 5 days a week, etc.—along with what feels like a tougher year in our industry.
Yet, I know that things turn out—and sometimes miracles happen. Or perhaps, an angel with an almost Hawaiian shirt and tennis shoes shows up at the corral.
~ Heidi Habben | Owner
