Ben's Journey Home

This weekend I ended a journey.  A journey that could be counted as 9 hours, 5 months, or 23 years.  A journey to bring Ben home.  Ben (B.W. Bendigo) is my Arabian gelding, born and bred on our family farm in Ohio and recently rescued from horrific conditions.  Ben has been to hell and back, starved within weeks of his life, but has remained energetic, friendly and pleasant.  Many of my friends and family have been following this saga since April, when Ben was discovered among 23 other horses confiscated by the village of Pleasant Prairie due to severe neglect on the part of their owners.  I was able to care for Ben and adopt him over the last five months.  He has gained back his strength slowly but surely.  Now we began the final part of the journey, taking Ben home to our family farm to live out his days.

Home.  Home.  Home is where the heart is.  There’s no place like home.  The word holds a special place in our language and our cultural mythology.  I am a fortunate person, indeed, to have a true home of my heart.  To hold a place in my memory; to have a place written on my heart.  A place where the light grows a little softer around the surrounding hills, where sounds of wind, water and animals soothe the ears, where time grows a little less frantic and where neighbors are lifelong friends.  That place is my family farm in Ohio and it’s Ben’s home, too.  It’s time for him to join the friends of his youth and graze the pastures where his mother and other noble souls lay to rest.  It is time for Ben to go home.

Ben and I were both lucky to live out our young years in the same place.  I lived in that house on that farm until I was 18 and returned every summer between college years.  Ben was born where his mother had been raised from a yearling.  Other than a few months where he joined me at college, that was his only home until he was 13.  Places form a person (or a horse), if you spend enough time there, if you really get to know it.  While I learned the creeks, the good climbing trees, the good hiding spots and the best places to lie down and watch the clouds, Ben learned the best grazing spots, the best running paths and the coolest, breeziest afternoon snoozing spots.  And we both became who we are in those 50 acres of rolling hills.

After all the drama of his discovery and recovery, Ben’s journey home was singularly uneventful.  After a moment of wide-eyed snorting, he loaded into the wide slant-load trailer without a fuss.  He rode the 400 miles like a champ, under my friend Marsha’s careful driving.  It seemed that the longer we rode and the more often we stopped, the calmer he became.  We joked that he knew he was coming home, that he could sense it.  

We arrived at the farm around 10:00 pm at night, in a misty rain.  He calmly unloaded and began to graze while we chatted.  My sister, Amy, had his stall bedded deep with shavings and ready with water and hay.  He walked in calmly.  The other horses have their run of the 22 acre pasture and barnyard.  They came in near the barn to see what the commotion was.  Everything was just so matter-of-fact, as if Ben had just been gone to a horse show.  I was waiting for my Disney moment, my Black Beauty moment of recognition.  Then, Bantu came to the barn door outside Ben’s stall.  Bantu is our patriarch, my sister’s 30 year-old campaigner, a National Show Horse who won his stripes in saddle seat competitions all over the state.  Bantu and Ben shared many trailer rides together and brought home many ribbons.  Bantu came to the door and whickered a little.  Ben’s ears perked up, he snuffled and nickered.  They couldn’t touch noses but they caught a whiff of each other and the excitement was evident to all of us.  Tears welled in our eyes.

The next morning, we turned Ben and Bantu out together in our paddock.  Amy had a plan to integrate Ben into the herd with the least amount of commotion.  The two old boys sniffed noses, squealed and arched their necks, and immediately commenced to eating grass.  After a few minutes, we opened the gate for the rest of the herd of 9.  Bantu and Ben moved amongst them as old pros, not making trouble, not testing boundaries, just eating happily and giving lots of space.  We could see the two old friends were buddies once more.  It was as if Ben had never left.

I wish I knew what horses were thinking; I wish they could talk.  Of course if they could talk, maybe Ben and his companions would not have been starved, some to death, some to near death.  Maybe if they could speak, we’d have to listen.  I wonder if Ben remembered his idyllic home while he was waiting and waiting to be fed.  I wonder if he thought of me and wondered why I’d left him, or worried about his friends beside him in the stalls, some dying at that very moment.  I wonder if longed for his old, safe life.  Thank God, twenty-three of those horses are safe now and have wonderful, loving people caring for them.  Thanks to the Pleasant Prairie Police Department and Clawz and Pawz Animal Rescue and all the volunteers, they now all have bright futures.  Whatever horrible journey Ben and the others had been on, they have now come home.  

I believe Ben knows where he is.  He didn’t sniff and explore his surroundings, he didn’t look for the gate or spook at the barn door.  He moved through the farm that is his home as if he never left it.  Maybe that is the message in this story, the message of hope.  For in Ben’s case, someone was waiting for him, with a place prepared and friends to welcome him.  He may have been through hell, but that’s not keeping him from enjoying heaven.  He’s not angry, vengeful or victimized; he is just a horse.  A horse who wants to have his pals, a pasture field and a quiet place to rest in the afternoon sun.  For in Ben’s case, the home and the people that had formed him were still there waiting to embrace him.  And he was ready to embrace it, with grace.  If only we were all as lucky and all as wise as my special horse.