We lost our girls first pony after 4 months in a freak accident 3.5 years ago. I still mourn her loss as she was a once in a lifetime pony. Kind, sweet fun and totally dependable.
I rode for the first time today since losing her. Yes, its been that long. My daughter begged me to ride her pony today. And thats an entire thread of its own.
In time you will heal. In the meantime let the tears fall, remember the good times and always be sure both of your horses knew they were tremendously loved.
it has been 2 years + and i still cry every time i think about my daughters sweet mare. sometimes life is just hard. i am sorry for your loss.
I lost my first when I was 15 that was 22 years ago and I can talk about her now, remembering the good times. I lost my second one almost 6 years ago and I still canāt talk about her. I miss herā¦
My simple answer to this never for me. Its been 9 months but seems like it was yesterday. I cant pick up anything of his with out bursting out in tears. I have a bad ride on the new guy and its tears. I have a cedar lined chest with all of his stuff in thier, blankets to saddle pads all unwashed. In grained with his sweat. I cant open it with out crying. If the horse means that much to you youāll never stop missing them.
I will agree to never. I lost mine a few years ago.
Now I have a new ādreamā horse and must sell her (I know it is different) but I am a mess:cry:
Thank you all!! I am SO sorry for each and everyone of your losses!! I guess that I felt that I should be in a better place by now but I am not even close and from the sounds of it I have a very long way to go.
Whiskey was my whole world and every thing that I did was for him. It was a joke at my trainers barn (before he developed Laminitis) that when he died they would have to bury me with him because I couldnāt survive without him. I guess that none of us never thought that the end would come so soon.
I did buy another 2 year old gelding after both boys died and I love him to piecesā¦his name is Milo. I also recently leased an awesome gelding that I will be showing in reining next year. neither of them can replace the ones that I lost but it does seem to make it easier to go to the barn everyday.
Again THANK YOU ALL! Your stories do help and they make me realize I am not CRAZY!!!
I lost my dog a year ago in June, and she was the one thing that has ever, in my whole entire life, made me light up like Christmas each and every single time I saw her. I canāt fully explain to anyone how much I miss her, I still sit down and cry buckets when I see little girl Boxers, and honestly? yeah, Iām trying to replace her. I miss seeing that sweet little face, and while I know there wonāt ever be another Lilo, a close second sure beats a totally different dog, at least for me. It flies in the face of all conventional wisdom, but Iāve never been so good at conventional wisdom anyway.
FrenchFry, Iām so sorry about your horse. 
I still miss her
lost my once in a lifetime mare in 1994 when she was 13. Freak pasture accident. I lost her daughter last year at 21ā¦ I miss them bothā¦
Iām so sorry to everyone on this thread that is missing their horses.
But, I have to say itās making me feel a lot better. I lost my beautiful, wonderful, perfect girl in May to a lameness we battled for 8 months. I havenāt ridden since our last ride together in October.
I feel like Iām expected to be totally over this by now, but Iām not at all.
I still wonder if I did the right thing for her. I tried my best, but most days Iām pretty convinced I completely failed her.
I visited her grave on Monday for the first time, it just brought everything back up the surface again. She was so perfect for me, truly my equine soul mate, I canāt imagine how any horse will ever hold a candle to her.
And on that note, I think Iāll go look at old pictures and cry some more.
I lost my first horse shadow who was a just turning 9. of november of 2008ā¦she passed away right in front of my eyes.she died of unknown causes.she was loved by me,family and lots of kids she taught to ride.i still gieve at times,but i have her son now,and is a total match of personality and work ethic and kind ness his mother had,so sometimes he really reminds me of her and in some way she is still with us through her sonā¦i know this sounds weird saying that,but its true to me.the grieving took about a good yr to get through,but like i said i never forget her.
I cried for Aisha for months. I still cry now, but I can also smile. She was my best friend and all I ever wanted was her to grow old(er) and let me care for her the way she cared for me.
I still have her things. Her first snaffle, a wooden sign with her shoe that I made in PC or 4H when I was eight or nine, her last blanket, her old brushing boots. I have a memory pot made from her hair. Plenty of pictures and some videos that make me smile. Good memories of how wonderful she was, and how wonderfully bratty she could be too.
It takes time. And maybe another horse can come along who can help, either the same color or breed or gender. Or completely different. I have Pink now, who other than being a mare looks nothing like Aisha on the outside. But on the insideā¦she is quiet, soft and forgiving.
I miss Aisha still, but itās easier. I think itās that way with all of us.
classic
Have you ever heard a child having more than 18 names? He can be called by a name on the
daily basis. This happens in the Tiwi societies who are the early Australian people. Names for
the people are nevertheless an important aspect in their culture.
This is where I was five months after my QH passed last fall:
http://endgame-journeys-end.blogspot.com/2010/03/five-months-later.html
There is no one timeline. Too many factors come into play like how deep was your connection, how long were you together, and so on. My QH wasnāt āthe Oneā for me, but he was a very special boy and over our fifteen years together (almost half of my lifetime) carved out a solid place in my heart that was left empty by his passing. I find that the āfirstsā without him bring on the sadness and tears, and with the end of my first year without him approaching Iām thinking of him often.
In the weeks leading up to my QHās passing I realized that none of my horsey friends would have any idea who I was talking about if I mentioned my first horseās name. I found this kind of sad, but it made me think about how I would answer the question āwho was he?ā (in reference to my QH who was my second horse). I decided to find my favourite images of him, collect little nuggets about his personality, physical characteristics, incidents we shared, the poem I wrote for him, and the like and put them together into a small scrapbook. It was eight months before I could bring myself to put the first pages together. I have one more page to do to complete the 40 page book. I had intended maybe 25-30 pages when I started out, but I needed all 40. It has been a very healing experience, but it was entirely necessary to wait until I was ready to start it. I went through photos and collected the ones I liked, weeded them out over and over again, picked photos to go with nuggets, and put them away again. I wrote little stories, and rewrote, and remembered things Iād forgotten and wrote those down, decided to have the writing follow this path, then that path, then another. In the end it was a very organic exercise and isnāt exactly what Iād planned, but itās perfectly what I wanted.
I managed to have a horsehair ceramic made for him about two months after he passed (January 2010 - Special Delivery in my blog), but his custom halter still hangs (uncleaned) on the back of my bedroom door, and the shadowbox leans up against the wall with his tail draped over the top. Iām still not quite ready to put the shadowbox together. My first horseās shadowbox has his custom bridle in it, and it took me about seven years to put that together - though I admit much of the time was simply wondering how to display it. I donāt think I will wait that long for my QHās box, but it will be when I am ready. No timeline. No pressure.
Grief takes as long as it takes.
(((hugs to you and French Fry))) and everyone else who lost their friends.
It s so hard.
I have an odd situationā¦ I sold someone their horse of a lifetime. I loved Him but he was not my horse. He was hers. Then he unexpectedly and prematurely died.
I realized yesterday ā much to my shock - that I mourned HER loss of himā¦ But not his death, for itself. I really feel blindsided by it.
Iāve been very lucky to have had more then one heart horse over my years with these beautiful creatures. The one that hit me the hardest when I lost him was Gaelic. He was my āgood deedā horse. My OTTB rescue that it took me a year to earn his trust. It took that long for me to be able to raise a brush up to his neck without him flying back thinking that I would hurt him. I lost him 8 years ago and if I could have any horse back that Iāve ever had, it would be him. I couldnt look at his pictures without chocking up for years. I was even given a pic of him for a present and It was all I could do to keep from making a fool of myelf. I still havenāt hung that picture up. I still miss him after 8 years but about 4 years ago I found Conner. Heās made the hurt go away and the smiles return.
[QUOTE=arabhorse2;5091307]
Diamond, if it had been 5 years Iād say you might need grief counseling, but 5 months? Youāre barely into your mourning period.
Grief is a part of life and it takes as long as it takes. I donāt have a timetable for you, because I only know how long it took for me. Everyoneās different, but I do know that you will get through it and come out the other side. I promise.[/QUOTE]
Ditto this.
My horse of a lifetime passed away suddenly and tragically two years ago this month. It was a massive loss and I took it very, very hard.
Since his death Iāve only ridden sporadically. I still like going to the barn but more to socialize than anything else.
It took probably a good 18 months for the really sharp pangs of sadness to disappear. Now it is more of an occasional ache and a wistfulness. I remember exactly what it was like to ride him, a if Iād just been on him yesterday. I have a lovely picture of the two of us and it has taken me this long to finally hang it on the wall, I used to get choked up just looking at it.
The birth of my son somehow healed the wound a bit. Not sure how or why but it did.
Anyway my heart goes out to you. Take all the time you needā¦ there is no timetable, no right or wrong. Donāt be afraid to let yourself grieve.
Hugs.
Itās been 7 years past the death of my once in a lifetime horse. I still cry and try to put it out of my head. She died in a barn fire and to this day I have nightmares about it. I doubt Iāll ever get over it, but it has gotten a lot easier as the years have gone by. It damaged me emotionally enough that I had to completely switch disciplines and breeds. I have done some dressage lessons since then but it will never be my life like it used to be. It took a couple of years to get past the really suffocating, emotional pain. I still feel sadness but itās no longer the kind that sucks the air out of your lungs and makes you sit on a hay bale and cry while doing chores.
Grief affects different people different ways. My mom never got over losing the horses in the fire. She quit riding all together and I doubt sheāll ever be back on another horse again. She quit breeding, and quit doing anything other than doing the daily feeding.
They were boarded out for training but we still have the farm and the barn and horses at home. Every Fall I get particularly sad because thatās the last time they were home. Before my girl left for the boarding barn, I got some really awesome photos of her in the Fall leaves and to this day I canāt see the first leaves of the season without some tears and a few really bad days.
And of course itās still awful seeing a different horse in her old stall. I will be really glad when we can finally move off this farm and I can leave her stall behind. It took years before I could put her remaining tack and clothing away. I just couldnāt stand not seeing it in the barn. I used to sit in the aisle with an old saddle pad on my lap and look at her bay hairs in the white fleece. It was just awful. I still canāt pull that stuff out without a lot of tears. The barn owner was kind enough to pull her shoes off her feet and of course those are pretty sacred to me too.
But itās just really hard. The most awful part of it is not knowing how much suffering there was before they died. That part is something Iāll take to the grave with me.
Itās been seven and a half years for me, and Iām still grieving. ((((((hugs))))) to you.
[QUOTE=EqTrainer;5093199]
It s so hard.
I have an odd situationā¦ I sold someone their horse of a lifetime. I loved Him but he was not my horse. He was hers. Then he unexpectedly and prematurely died.
I realized yesterday ā much to my shock - that I mourned HER loss of himā¦ But not his death, for itself. I really feel blindsided by it.[/QUOTE]
Just saw this.
:sadsmile:
Often wondered if you were able to grieve him properly, as you were such a rock for me I worried you didnāt have the chance to process things for yourself.
I think of him and you every dayā¦ and am always grateful for having had him in my life.
I lost my beloved 8 year old Percheron, Half Pint, 11 months ago. He had lymphoma, and his illness and death were sudden. I miss him so much. I grieve quietly for him. I discovered after he died how much I truly loved my naughty, forever-lame, fence-snapping, people-loving Percheron.
As much as we love our animals, why does it surprise us that we grieve no less than if we lost a human friend? That grieving never goes away, it just softens over time.
