The wind was cold against my face as I looked into the gray October sky. I could still feel her soft muzzle against my cheek. It tingled with the memory. I remembered the look in her eyes as I stood there with Madison and Erin, tears filling each of our eyes as we just looked at the palomino mare that had earned a place in our hearts. We had known the day was coming, but none of us could prepare ourselves for something like that. Death, it was something that couldn’t be reversed.

I was sure she knew what was happening that morning, when we all gathered around, fed her treats, rode her, brushed her, and cried tears of grief into her soft neck. I tried hard not to let it get to me. I knew it was a fact of life. But I was sure that I would never like the vet as much as I had used to after he did what was to be done that day.
I drifted back to the days that summer when I had simply thrown a halter and lead rope on her and rode around the pasture, bareback. That mare could fly. It was so heart wrenching to think of her walking up that hill…never to come down again. To look across the damp green fields that she had once played in, to gaze down at the barn that had been her home for the past year, to softly nicker at the ones she loved, knowing she was leaving us, never to return.
A tear trickled down, and landed on the daisy I held in my hand, braided into a lock of soft cream colored mane.
“Daisy Mae,” I whispered to myself, fingering the fading petals. I walked slowly up the hill to the rock marker where she now lay, quiet and cold beneath the soft earth. A bouquet of now withering daisies rested solemnly on the carefully placed rock.
“She’s gone to be a unicorn,” the voice of five year old Sara echoed through my foggy memory. “She doesn’t know how yet. But Magic will teach her, you wait and see.” I took a shaky breath and knelt down in the softly blowing grass.
“I hope you find your wings,” I murmured, smiling faintly. “Thank you. Thank you for everything you taught me, Sweet Mare.”