Sadie...

The deeper that sorrow carves into our soul, the more joy we may attain.      -Kahlil Gibran

As I have now touched on what my childhood was like regarding alcoholic parents with terrible problems, I will share how my beloved Shetland pony Sadie came into my life.

Besides my parents fighting all the time my drunk father would often get very violent towards me for no reason.  Then when he saw the awful wounds the next day he would feel horrible trying hard to make up for the abuse inflicted.  Perhaps HE felt better, yet as the still terrified abused one MY feelings differed.  And I yet have all the physical scars of these.

There was one time after the wounds were especially bad he felt so terrible I was taken to see the man down the road who raised Shetland ponies.  Since we had over an acre of land we were allowed a horse so that was the day Sadie came home with me.  

This DEFINITELY was NOT the way to have your lifelong dream finally come true at all but there it was.  I then helped my father and a friend build a small shelter and a corral for her. 

I really needed this pony.

Sadie set me free.  Not from the abuse but in other desperately needed ways.  There were all kinds of trails and great places to ride back then and we soared across them all.  NO ONE ridiculed me or was mean when I was on her.  She was my separate peace...my freedom.

I took care of Sadie before and after school even if I

was sick.  And I constantly babysat using all the money to buy her feed, hay, and whatever else was needed.  Sadie was my responsibility and I wasn't about to have my parents ever say a thing about expense or anything else.  I made damn sure all her needs were met because I lived in terror she could be taken away.  In the horrors and uncertainty of my life then anything could happen.

To an extent, with my dear Sadie I could escape those horrors some.  For as the drinking, fighting, humiliation, and violence continued, Sadie was THE difference to my being able to survive it.  

So yes, the deeper sorrow carves into our soul the more joy we can attain.  For a ridiculed child living in hell that joy came with four legs, brought love, freedom, hope, and the magic with horses that would continue for forty-nine years.