Heart Between Us

(The below story has a trigger warning for Subject: Grief)

"You're in a meadow. The trees are whispering in the wind. The flowers waving gently with the grass in the breeze. You’re laying on your back watching the clouds slowly roll by."

I listened to the words my physical therapist speaks to me. She is rubbing my leg muscles as she speaks in a gentle voice. The lights have been dimmed, and soft enchanting music is playing. My eyes have closed, and my mind is drifting off to that meadow.

Here in this quiet, meditating atmosphere my heavy heart wanders with my mind.

I miss him. My soul animal. My best friend. Gone much too soon from me. I haven’t been right since he had crossed over that rainbow bridge. Even now, as my mind and heart are in this peaceful meadow with the sun streaming through the trees, tears well in my eyes.

Sonny. He had been everything to me. I felt my heart swelling. I had never gotten to take him on one final ride. Never had gotten to groom him one final time. It had all happened so fast. So sudden. My heart cried out. I can’t hear my therapist talking anymore, I don’t feel the soothing massage.

I was fully here. This beautiful, almost magical meadow that I have never been to before. A mist drifted into the serene meadow. I sat up to look around. I wasn't alone here. Standing, I turn toward a wood line and from that wood line he emerges.

Without hesitation I run toward him. My throat locked to keep from sobbing, my arms outstretched. "Sonny" I breath.

He walks toward me and stops; I try to reach for him but phase through. I blink quickly. Trying again to pet his forehead. His cute furry face, the white star and stripe shining in the sun. Whiter than ever. But I phase through again.

"What? Why can't I pet you?" The tears slipping down my cheeks, falling to the meadow ground.

"Because I am not alive, and you are not dead. Here is a place in-between Life and Death. A meeting ground."

I feel my heart shatter...again. How that was possible I had no idea. "I want you... no I need you back Sonny." I wrap my hands in themselves, holding them to my chest.

His eyes search mine. "I am with you always. While I may not be there in physical form, my spirit will always be with yours."

"It's not the same" I stammer, trying hard to hold my composure. I reach my hand out again. I can't touch him, but I can rest my hand near him, pretend it is on him. "How am I supposed to go on?"

"You can. Knowing that what you chose was what was best for me. I love you for it."

I feel my legs shaking... or maybe it’s the therapist, her voice coming back into my head as the meadow around me begins to fade.

"No wait! Please. Stay with me!" I reach out for him, his form fading with the scenery around me.

"I shall be homesick for you for even as I am in heaven. I will be waiting for you at the golden gates, and one day we will ride together again."

The music is gone now. The meadow has morphed back into the therapist's office. My eyes flutter open to my therapist turning up the dimmed light. My cheeks feel dry. But my throat is tight. The screams of sobs are welling inside of me, but I must hold it together.

"You did good. I will see you at our next week's session. Make sure to do the exercises I gave you."

I nod. "Thank you." I manage as I grab my things and head back out to my truck.

Once inside I sit in the silence, the only sound is the traffic around me. I look to my rearview mirror where a picture of my Sonny hangs.

"Why did you have to leave me?" I cry. "Why?" I lay my head on the steering wheel and let the tears fall. I want to go back to that meadow. Was that the last time I will ever be there?

The drive home feels surreal. Not sure how I even made it back to my house but somehow I find myself sitting in my driveway, staring at the barn and fence line, the broken fence line. It had been months since Sonnys untimely and tragic death. Deer had since knocked down the lines, wind had tore at the electrical tape. The barn that once was full of a life now stood dark and cold even in the hot summer sun. It was as though a dark, grey cloud had been cast over the fields where Sonny once stood.

He wouldn’t want this.

I get out of my truck and stand staring, the motivation to fix it isn’t there. The want to go into the barn is gone. The mere sight of it makes me sick. I turn away.

“I’m sorry Sonny.” I whisper. “I just miss you too much. Some days I can barely breath through the grief”

How I long to go back to that meadow. That silent place, the place I saw him again. I want to tell my friends what I experienced but whose gonna believe me? Even to myself it sounds crazy, and had I not experienced it first hand I wouldn’t believe it either.

My mind is flashing back to those final, horrible moments. I step inside my front door, my husband and baby waiting for me inside. I smile for them, I am strong for them. But inside, I am a shattered mess. Looking for scraps of hope to cling onto to keep going, trying to remember Sonny as he was is painful so instead I push any thought of him away as I tend to my family. But at night when the house is silent and I am alone again with my thoughts, the grief comes in like a crashing wave.

Will I ever be alright again? Will I ever be able to love another horse the same way again? My heart cries itself to sleep, as with every night I hope to find myself back in that meadow, but as I fear, that was the first and last time I think I will ever step foot in that beautiful, magical place. The place I last saw him, the last till I am called home to Heaven.