A Difficult Day

Today is a hard day for myself and many of my closest childhood friends. Usually, November 9th comes and goes with only a small group of people who were there knowing about the tragedy that took place. Isn't it interesting how life is? There are certain days in individual's lives that bring up such feelings of happiness, or sadness, and yet to another person that day is just like any other and we are isolated in that aspect of individuality. I actually feel lucky that I have a dozen people at least who were there and can share it, so I'm not alone. But then it occurred to me that now I have this blog as an outlet for that, and I can just put it out there for those of you that have a day (or days) that bring back bad memories.

It is amazing because it was 11 years ago now. I was 14 years old. Back then 11 years away seemed like an eternity, and looking back it feels like it just happened. Those of you who know me well know that I grew up riding horses at a barn close to my house. I was there day and night for years on end with my horse and a dozen of the closest friends any young girl could wish to have. We were like a pack of barn rats that literally grew up in that barn. Our horses were definitely more to us than barnyard animals. They were our comrades. We spent every day with them and not an hour went by when we weren't at the barn that we didn't think of them or plan out our next great adventure from high on their backs.
We used to walk from middle school in a big group down to the barn every afternoon- rain, snow, heat- nothing kept us away. In short, there was nothing more dear to us than our horses and each other.
On the morning of November 9th I woke up early at my house with two other friends from the barn. We always had sleepovers on the weekends but because there were so many of us we often ended up breaking into groups so we wouldn't drive our parents crazy... My Mom wasn't home and I thought that was weird since it was around 6AM on a weekend- I found a note that she had written that she was at the barn, so I immediately thought (as any 14 year old would ) that she was off planning my surprise birthday party. A little after that, my Mom came home and I'll never forget she walked into my bedroom where my friends and I were, and informed us that the barn had burned down that morning. We started screaming and crying and turned on the television. There was the barn on the news, engulfed in flames and gone. We then found out that only 1 horse out of 14 horses in the barn had survived. My horse and a couple others had been saved due to randomly being in the pasture that night. The rest of my friends horses were killed.
We immediately drove to the barn and the rest of our friends were there. There are two things about it that I will never forget- the first look at the barn, and the smell. The entire barn was gone. Laying on top of the ash were the bodies of all of the horses, spaced out in their individual stalls- their blankets had burned off of their bodies. I'll skip the disturbing details, but you can imagine that seeing this through 14 year old eyes is almost unimaginable. Looking back on it now, we spent that entire day guarding the barn. We sat in front of it, and the dead horses, and made it clear that no reporter or stranger was welcome. We sat there all day, like baby animals refusing to leave their dead mother. We watched the truck come and load the horses' bodies. That night we all slept together at a house nearby and I will never forget falling asleep to the sounds of my friends weeping in the darkness and the smell coming in through an open window.

The next day we had a memorial service. We gathered mementos and buried them in a box to be unearthed 20 years from the day. For a long time the land where the barn once stood was covered with piles of dirt- a constant reminder of our loss. We even found bones there while playing one day. We had a temporary barn that was terrible and it was in the middle of winter. But we kept going. People shared horses and we even went to an annual horse show and won first place. After time went by, my friends got new horses- they could never replace those lost, but forged their own special place in our history.

I'm not telling you this story to ruin your day- cause it's a bummer. But the point is the durability of the human spirit- especially that of a child. We literally watched a truck haul away the dead bodies of these horses, but we were so strong. The barn was eventually rebuilt (much nicer) and we all grew up over time and went in our own separate directions. Some of us don't even know each other anymore. The people that ride at the barn now don't even know about how there was an old barn and the tragedy that leveled it. But every year on November 9th, when I pull up to the barn to lay flowers down in memory of the day, there are piles of flowers there already because my friends who were there will never forget. On this day we're are all in the same time- November 9th, 1997- and it's a day that forever changed our lives.