Driving into a rainbow

Today was a day of mixed emotions, great sadness tempered with grief over the loss of Sammie which is still surprising in its intensity.

Today, I went to meet the New Girl. She is not a replacement. No horse can ever replace Sammie, and it's not fair on her, let alone disrespectful of Sammie, to think so. She is her own horse, solid, sturdy, young and full of promise.

I felt great excitement as I drove the distance between my yard and hers. Giddy at the thought of a new horse to love and welcome of my "family" of horses, those that aren't mine, but are in my life because they belong to my friends.

It was pouring rain, torrential. I stopped to get petrol and then continued of my journey. Two things happened.

My CD player in my little truck holds six CDs. As I drove away from the petrol station, the CD player clicked onto a new CD, one that I have been skipping over for the past few weeks. It was "my Sammie music" that began to play.

Yes, there is a back story here. At the beginning of September, I was watching "Beatles night" on BBC2. Documentaries, new footage, clips from "Help", "Hard Day's Night" and "Yellow Submarine". It was a brilliant night of television. Had me grinning and singing along, laughing at the wit of the Fab Four in interviews and remembering how much I loved The Beatles.

The next morning, I dug through my CDs and could only find "Magical Mystery Tour", so I took that to my car, swapped out "My Chemical Romance" which I had rather overplayed, and was delighted to hear a number of old favourites that I'd forgotten about.

Very shortly after that, we had the first news of Sammie going lame. Over the next few weeks, I had quite a few drives over to visit Sammie and offer support to the singular horse himself, and his human, who is as dear to me as she was to Sammie.

The journey between my house and Sammie's yard was perfectly times by the Magical Mystery CD. As I arrived at the yard, it was to the end of "All You Need is Love", the last song on the CD. Although, strictly speaking, I always played "I am the Walrus" twice because it's so good I always give it a repeat.

Again, on the last trip, the evening when I did that final drive, knowing Sammie was no longer with us, I listened again, and "All You Need is Love" had me in tears as I arrived and pulled into my friend's driveway, knowing there was little I could do or say to comfort her, but my presence, I hoped, would be enough.

I drove home that night in silence, and although I did not remove the CD from my car, I didn't allow it to play in the intervening time.

But here I was driving, "Roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour, step right this way..." and I felt the tears prickle.

The other thing that happened as the music started, is that the rain stopped. The sun came out, and as I drove on, a brilliant rainbow appeared directly in front of me.

Oh, it's a natural phenomenon, no question. And the music was incidental, it just happened to be next CD up for play, and I just happened not to click past it as I had been doing.

But something about the two together, the rainbow and my Sammie music, lifted my heart and made me hopeful. The future with the New Girl bodes very good indeed. Very right. As it should be. With Sammie's approval.

Man, did that orange monkey stamp his mark on this world! And through him, because of him, the New Girl will thrive and carry on the story.

Sammie will never completely be "was" in my head, but always "is" because he is so entwined in the life that goes on. He is so much a part of the going forward. He was so keenly interested in other horses, and he had a sense of himself that was commanding.

He is the firm foundation that the New Girl sets her sturdy hooves upon, and he is the rock that my friend can lean upon when she's not sure sure what to do with an open youngster.

We can't see him, and I hate that we can't see him, but he is not gone from us.

Nothing is forgotten, and nothing is left behind as we go forward.