Letter 61 – The Horse Ranch

Garrett, 

One the places where you felt at home was at Sheila’s ranch. If we could have moved you there, we would have.

You loved horses. From an early age you wanted to learn how to ride. I sought out different camps for you and one day, I came across the website for Sheila’s ranch. Not a traditional camp, but a woman with a long history of teaching people how to ride and who had a ranch, of sorts, and invited kids to come and experience ranch life.

You stayed in her house. She didn’t have internet for tv but had old vhs tapes of Gilligan’s Island that you watched in the evenings. From what you told me, you’d often be asleep by eight. The days were filled with riding and taking care of the ranch. I think you felt a contentment there that you found nowhere else.

I remember you telling me once how much work Sheila put into the horses. People would bring horses to her, either to board or to train or get rid of. You told me once about how she put her hands on a horse and stood there for hours. The horse needs this, she told you. And she would have you come over and put your hands on the horse and stand there with her, and you told me that you cried.

You would ride in the desert for hours. Riding with Sheila was a joy. You responded to her. She was a tough, put up with nothing kind of person. A high-school dropout who had a rough ride and found a life for herself that she could call good. I think you loved her. And I know she cared about you. Deeply.

The last couple of years, the drugs and the people in your life got in the way of your wanting to be there. You wanted to go, but you didn’t want to leave anything behind, either. Garrett, you are going, we told you. You need a break from here. Let yourself do this. We had told Sheila what was going on, and what we suspected, and she said, bring him down. She was on your side, Garrett. How I wish you would have let yourself stay there.

You called me one day and told me about how the two of you had ridden to the post office to meet the UPS truck when it rolled in. The UPS guy handed her a box and she tossed it over to you and said, open it. It was a drug test, mom, you told me. She tossed me the box and made me take a drug test. Wow, I said, what happened? Well, I took it. And? I asked. Clean, mom, totally clean. And Sheila confirmed it later that night. Clean.

You loved everything about that place and even decided at one time that you were going to have a horse ranch yourself one day. But as the years went by you left that dream behind, and didn’t replace it with anything else. You got lost, and my heart breaks for you when I think about that.

You kept in contact with Sheila even when you weren’t down there. I think you told her some of what was going on and she told you to come down. Just come down, she said. But you never did. Right up until the day you died, Kevin and Sheila were trying to find a way to have you go down there. Where you would be safe, and you could restore yourself, and be with the horses.

I miss you. I wish we could have found a way to put everything on hold until we had a plan that worked. I wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to feel good about yourself and the things that you did. But we didn’t have the time to sort it out before you overdosed. I will regret that until the day I die. No matter how much I heal, no matter how much I come to terms, this will not change.

At your gathering, your friend’s mother created a memorial card for people to take home with them to remember you by. She asked me to write something about you to put on the card. I thought about it. What do I say, on this card memorializing your death? There was nothing about your recent life that I wanted to recount, at the time.

So, I wrote something else. It is on your card, which is in a book, that I keep in the drawer of my cabinet. It doesn’t matter if it’s any good. It just is. I wrote a haiku, because the very first poem you wrote for us was a haiku, and I have that poem framed in my office. For this card, I wrote:

Goodbye horses; the
gates are loosed. Goodbye horses;
nudge out, break away.

I see the horses loping out of the pen, into the desert landscape. You are with them.