While I was at the State Fair in September I was out walking Woodrow one night. We walked through the arenas in the back of the barn, just lingering here and there while it was night time, not many people around back there. You can tell that most of the people have dwindled away, heading home after a long day at the fairgrounds. The noises get lower, the midway has shut down and an occasional person can be heard heading off to the parking lot laughing and hooting. Must have been all the beer?

I could see in Woodrow this excitement, his nose flared, his head high and then we came upon another arena where they were moving cattle in and out of pens, chutes and walkways. I walked him over and I stood watching Woodrow. It always amazes me when you take a horse to an environment that they have grown up in after being gone for years. There was this fire in his eyes that you don't see that often. I began to imagine what his life must have been like all those years traveling from rodeo to rodeo, the journeys he must have had. I watched him as he put his nose to the ground sniffing, as he wandered slowly over to the panel to watch the cows come within touching distance. I felt this sadness come over me as I watched him. It reminded me of a strapping young man who had done something in his life, all his life, and then had reached an age where the spirit and the body were on different levels. Watching an elder man sitting in a wheelchair and knowing that once he ran with the wind, had the strength of mighty men. Now, he was sitting there in his Golden Years just watching life go by. Did he have regrets? Did he long so badly to step out of that wheelchair and one more time do something that was so innate in him that he had done for years? 

I saw that in Woodrow. The way he shifted from foot to foot, the anxious feeling of "let me in there, its time to go to work". I smiled and had tears in my eyes and I scratched his head and told him "Grampa, your retired from that now" He butted me with his nose in his way of telling me "Kiddo, I'll never be retired so move over". I had to chuckle. I know in his heart that he would do his job till the day he dropped over and the Creator called him home. I, the anxious protector, worry that he would get hurt. I think in some ways it would be me that would hurt more knowing that he was in pain. 

I wonder do some people ever look deep enough into their eyes and catch a glimpse of their story. Find out what they have to tell. When was the last time you slowed yourself enough to listen to the elderly and what they had to say? Did you hear a story of long ago? Did they pass onto you their wisdom, their journey before it was gone? Sometimes we are peddling too fast to pay attention. Why not this holiday season take the time to speak to an elderly person. Hear their spirit.. It might just help yours...