Were you there when the world caved in? Impending darkness, closing in slowly around me. When the sun, in all of its glory, fell from its perch in the rolling sky. When the words fell from my paper like a star from the sky, disappearing into complete oblivion. There were no words for the moment, nothing they could say, nothing I could do. It was completely beyond my pitiful control. A feeling of total helplessness, confusion, sadness, anger. When I got there, she said that it was too late. And with a giant symbol crash, everything ended.

Were you there when it happened? I never full understood what went wrong. I just saw him lying on the ground. It was something in his legs, I believe. A broken leg in a horse is an immediate death sentence. The shock, the realization, the horror, the anger, the sadness. I never reached acceptance in my healing process.

Were you there when I woke up at three o’clock in the morning, sobbing? Were you there to convince me that it wasn’t true? So unrealistic, yet so real. Were you there to face my argument? To remind me that we had been on a ride only hours earlier, that he was fine? It took me a full half hour to convince myself that he was not dead.

Why didn’t you tell me? It popped into conversation out of the blue one day, as I was filling water buckets. That’s probably why he’s afraid of the hose, you said. Abused. That one word, ringing in my ears, haunting my dreams. I had never felt such nausea before then. Sick at the idea. And then months later, that one nightmare.

Were you there?