All Things Beautiful

My whole body went cold when I saw the number on the telephone. Univerisity Hospital Urgent Neurology Department.

I had an M.R.I. last week and they said the result would take about seven days...

Everyone knows it's not usually a good thing if they actually call you about the results...

Would they want me to come in and discuss them?

Dear Jesus....help me....
help me just to pick up the phone.

He did, and I did and it was all a false alarm. Apparently I've finally been booked into an appointment with a migraine specialist  in the city.

A sigh of relief so mighty I think my knees gave out.

Isn't it amazing how powerful fear is?

My sister and I were reminiscing last week on our separate but equal experiences of being chased home from kindergarten by a large dog. Two different kids, two different schools, two different towns , two different dogs...exactly the same adrenaline that made us fly home faster than any five year old's legs every carried them; swept along by blind panic that any minute the large playful dog hot on our heels would devour us in it's enormous jaws.

Thinking about it, still gets my heart beating.

And just last night we took our five year old for her first ever horse-back riding lesson and no actual horse-back riding actually happened. Because it was the same combination of small child and large animal and my poor overwhelmed kid just stood there after all the months of chatting excitedly about getting to ride a horse, after all the drawings of herself on a horse, after decorating her bedroom and filling her wardrobe with homemade "cowgirl" outfits, after all the times we've driven out to visit horses in their stables where they were being ridden by other girls, going to the rodeo and even just watching it on YouTube, after pointing out loudly, every horse spotted on the side of the highway...after all this, she burst into tears.

I can't do it mom, I can't ride it mom, I just can't. I just can't do it!

Now granted I think her normal amount of pluck was badly bludgeoned by the immunization incident she suffered on Tuesday morning. But I really wasn't that surprised that she had that reaction. After all, docile and old, she may be...but that horse was still pretty big.

It took a lot of coaxing and the special touch of her very skilled trainer to get her close enough to old Mary to begin brushing her and eventually with me standing beside her we got to brushing out her mane and tail and even picking out her hooves. She got more and more relaxed and she began to chat and I could see her relaxing and beginning to open up.

Finally it was time for me to stand back and her trainer showed her how to hold the lead rope and together they took Mary into the practice ring. My daughter learned how to guide her left and right, how to back up and how to say "woah" and bring the mare to a stop.

By the end of the class her trainer was standing on one side of the ring alone and my daughter focused and pleased with herself led that big creature all around and through the pile-ons that had been set up.

All. By. Herself.

She never did get up on Mary's back, although she assures me she'll try again next week and with the progress she made in only an hour last night, I'm pretty confident she will too.

The hard part for me as a mom is simply knowing when to step in and when to back off. When do I put my hand over hers with the brush and help her get her hands onto the horse's back and when do I fade into the distance so that she can take the reigns so to speak?..

The best teachers are those that have perfected that art.

It's humbling on one hand to realize my little girl still needs me and it's humbling to realize she only needs me to a certain point.

It's a balancing act, Even for myself in mastering my own fears. When do I accept or ask for help, when does that support become a crutch?

Driving home from the stable, my shoulders were tense and I felt strained and nervous. I have very poor night vision and it was at my husbands push, that I was the one behind the wheel. He wants me to be able to be the one who shares these weekly classes with our daughter and I want that too, but I don't usually like to drive after dark, especially on little gravel roads that lack streetlights, lines and proper ditches.
But I did it and I'm glad I did, because next week perhaps I can make it on my own.

Me behind the wheel and my little girl up in that saddle.

Both of us conquering our fears.