Mourning a loss...
Reading, thinking, about Barbaro makes my heart hurt. Something about the loss of a creature with such spirit and will to live, who fought so hard and good-naturedly for so long...

There were some moving articles about him in the Washington Post this morning. One columnist wrote, in an effort to explain why he seems to have touched and captivated so many people, why he was so loved:

But it's not anthropomorphic to say that horses are irreproachably benevolent creatures, and this is surely one of the causes of our grief over Barbaro. It's a fact that of 4,000-odd animal species, only a very few are tame-able, none more so than horses. They are peaceful grazers by nature, and willing by disposition. Despite their considerable size advantage, they tolerate us and even bear burdens for us. While [they] can certainly be fearsome, their misbehavior is a flight response, not sadism, or outlawry. They have followed us, and favored us with their gifts to an extent that few other animals do, and partnered with us throughout history, from Persia to the Pony Express. "Gallant" is a word often applied to them, and it's apt.

How true. Sometimes when I lead Bodie or Griggs onto the trailer, I'm so struck by their willingness - the fact that they go against millions of years of evolution, walk into a tiny, enclosed box, simply because I ask them to. It's humbling.

And so, as Jane Smiley says, there is something "extra-large" about the death of a horse. "Yes, to those who don't care about horses, terrible things are happening all over the world these days, and they demand from many people an unprecedented level of endurance, but we horse lovers say: This, too? That this beautiful and innocent animal should also die?" People who know horses see their kind and willing spirit all the time, but for the public, Barbaro epitomized it.

Plus, of course, Barbaro's loss hits close to home for me, reminding me yet again how easily things could go wrong. One wrong step, one bad swallow... Jane Smiley began her column recalling the death of one of her horses by colic - remembering staring at the horse's body, which was perfect but for the twist in her gut. And, she said, "so it is with all horses. They are engineered so close to the margins of what is physically possible that when one thing fails, it can cause the failure of the whole animal."

You can't be around horses for long, can't love them, without having this knowledge as a constant low background hum in your mind. You just have to find a way to tune it out most of the time. Which, perhaps, is true of life in general. But there's something about animals...

Gretchen Jackson, Barbaro's owner, had the truth of it when she said yesterday: "Certainly, grief is the price we all pay for love."