Shiloh

I felt well enough yesterday to go to the barn for some much needed horse therapy. Though it's still hard for me to go there since I lost my precious horse, Shiloh, the barn is still my happy place and I need that now more than ever during my intense battle with Lyme disease. It was so peaceful lying in the grass next to the horses and drinking in the sunshine. How my heart missed that!

For the first time since Shiloh died, I walked around the pasture that she called her home. Suddenly, I remembered something. I walked into her barn and looked up into the rafters and there they were: the birds nests accumulated over the years, woven with silky white horse hairs from my beloved pony!

Shiloh was known around the barn for her ability to grow and completely shed out the most incredible winter coat that anyone had ever seen. Mother birds greedily snatched up tufts of Shiloh's silky soft fur off of the ground for their nests and their baby birds never went cold.

The nests are now old and vacant, the birds have long since grown and flown away, and my beloved pony is gone. But just like the horse hairs painstakingly woven into place by mother birds, Shiloh's memory is forever woven deep in my heart. Like the safety of a nest, she was my warm safe place where I could take refuge from the storms of life. She tucked me under her wings for 5 years. She was my mama bird and she taught me how to fly. I will love her always.