A Rodeo without you

Tucker nailing it! This young man is an incredible roper!

   Last Saturday morning, Kristi and I went to the Slack Rodeo at the Civic Center to watch our friend, Tucker Dale, team rope, and we also got to see Shanna Anderson barrel race. Fun to see ole' friends from Timber Lake, SD compete.

   As we walked into the arena, I first was accosted by that old familiar smell of horse manure and wood chips.  My comment was "Wow, haven't smelled that in a while," to which Kristi replied, "Yah, doesn't that smell good."  I replied, "I'm not sure I call it good, but it is familiar."

    As we went to find a seat while waiting for Bill and Jackie (Tucker's parents), I was overcome by all the old familiar sights and sounds.  Seeing all those cowboy hats, and knowing my Cowboy's hat lays empty on the saddle horn on the rack in our bedroom. (Part of my western decor, I have Tyson's beautiful saddle on a rack in my western bedroom. Since Todd died, I have his hat and chinks hanging over the saddle.)   I didn't realize that just going to a rodeo would effect me so.  It was just another shocking reminder that Todd is gone from my present life.  None of those cowboy hats had his big smiling face under it.  

  The saddle rack in the corner of my bedroom.  I made the hanging quilt on the wall for Todd for his 50th birthday a few years ago.  It's called the "Great American Cowboy". Thought it was so fitting of a description of Todd.

       It just seemed odd that this use to be our way of life.  I can't count the number of rodeoes where I sat watching the kids, and way back when, Todd, ride in the arena, always hoping for that winning buckle, or at least an improved time.  Now it's just memories, a life in the past, gone from my life forever. Not that I'll never go to another rodeo, I told Jackie that when Tucker makes the NFR, I'm going to go watch. :-)  Being there was more of a reminder  of my life that I lost.  Although that way of life was not familiar ground for me before Todd, it became common place after I met him.  To be truthful, before I met Todd, I had only attended one rodeo when I was in High School.  We had a foreign exchange student living with us from Japan, and she wanted to see a rodeo, so my mom had me take her. I had no idea what was going on, little did I know that in a few years, I'd be hauling horses around and attending numerous rodeos and horse shows every summer.

    I remember when we sold our horse trailer with the living quarters a few years ago, I stood in the yard out in Kintyre, and just cried watching it being hauled out of the yard.  Todd stood there looking at me rather bewildered.  It was more to me than just selling an old beat up trailer, a Circle J 1989 steel trailer, what a beast to haul, it was I was loosing more of Todd, more of our life was gone.  We had to sell, cause he could no longer, do those things that had always been so natural to him.   When we sold our last horse in December of  2012,  I bawled like a baby standing there freezing in my parents yard, watching Dude leave in someone elses trailer.  Knowing that part of our lives was over. Todd and I had always had at least one horse, even before the kids started rodeoing. It was just part of Todd.

     Now Todd no longer knew even how to saddle a horse.    It was more than just selling our last horse, again, I was loosing Todd.  The man who knew more about horses than anyone else in my life,  no longer could care for them, and it wasn't right for my 80+ year old father to be out there feeding them either, and I didn't have a clue as to how to take care of them.  The horses had always been Todd's and the kids thing.  I've personally never cared much for horses, don't get me wrong, I think they're beautiful, but I really don't like to be around them.  I'm not a good rider, and don't enjoy it.  I do like to take pictures of them though. :-)

    Earlier that fall (2012), Todd was down in my dad's corral "saddling up" a horse.  I went down to see him, and saw that  the saddle had no cinch on it.  Todd didn't even realize that.  When I said, "Todd, you can't ride without a cinch, where's the cinch?"  He just stared at me, and then turned and pulled the saddle off the horse.  He never tried to ride again, and we never found the cinch either.  He had taken apart several of our saddles.  Stirups were missing, cinches gone, latigos no where to be found.  Kristi spent a lot of time down in Grandpa's shop (where the saddles were stored) trying to piece everything back together.  But some things we never found again.  Todd would hide things.  Sometimes we never found them again, and of course he couldn't remember where he hid it.  This was the part of Todd's illness no one saw but us.  It wasn't just horse tack, it was my dad's tools, sometimes clothes, things from my parents kitchen or garage (this was while we were living with my parents).  Things would just be missing, sometimes we find them in the strangest places.  One morning I got up to find my Mom's winter coat and gloves in our bedroom, underneath a pillow on the lazyboy chair.  I don't know if he had tired to wear them in the middle of the night, I'll never know, the gloves were also wet.  When we were moving our belonging out of my parents garage to our new home, I found my cowboy boots  that Todd had bought me on our honey moon, shoved behind a bed my Dad had stored in his garage. They had been in a box of keepsake items, why he singled them out I don't know. There never was any logic to these things.  Just another awful symptom of the wretched condition of dementia.  

    I wasn't just loosing our horses and that way of life, I was loosing him.  

    This morning I read this scripture that was a great comfort:

"You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth. You will restore me to even greater honor and comfort me once again. Then I will praise you with music on the harp, because you are faithful to your promises, O my God. I will sing praises to you with a lyre, O Holy One of Israel." (Psalms 71:20-22 NLT)

      Even through I've been through a great loss, I can be assured that God is the God of all comfort and he will lift me up, and I will and do praise him with music on my guitar, sorry I don't know how to play a harp or lyre.  I also know He is faithful to his promises. God can not fail.   

       Maybe even someday, I'll be able to attend a rodeo without that sad feeling of loss, and just go and enjoy it, but like any sporting event, if I don't know someone who's competing, it's not any fun to watch.  Right now it just feels empty to watch a rodeo without my cowboy beside me.