Endings: Being There for a Hard Goodbye

This is a continuation of my previous post.

I know it was hard for Harlan, the outfitter, to say goodbye to the first two horses to be sold out of his guest string. By loading them into our trailer, he was taking a step that helped make his retirement and the closing of his business more real. And besides that, the horses had been his near-steady companions and business partners for many years.

I walked behind him as he led Corky, a

 a 28-year-old roan gelding, down the road toward our trailer. Corky had been in Harlan's outfit for 20 years. I can only imagine the memories that flashed by as he took that walk.

I saw him give the second horse, a 17-year-old bay mare he'd raised from an earlier generation of guest horses, a final scratch on the neck as he gave her a few parting words.

To these horses, getting into a trailer, to go winding through mountain roads, was nothing out of the ordinary. It's part of what they know how to do.

But for Harlan, it was the first (and last) time he'd be putting them into a trailer without being the owner who'd take them back out. That's an experience that's never easy.