Remembering "The Other Sugar"

The "other Sugar." Such a pretty girl.

Sometimes things come out of the blue and completely throw you for a loop.  I felt that way tonight when I opened Facebook and read a friend's post.  She'd written that her mare had sustained a serious injury and had been euthanized.  I'd be devastated to learn that any friend had lost their beloved horse, but this one?  This one hit very close to home.

My friend is someone I'd met through A Work In Progress, a fellow blogger who was originally from New Jersey and, in one of those bizarre coincidences life will throw at you, also had a mare named Sugar.  Through our blogs and Facebook friendship we kept up with each other's equestrian ups and downs, and shared news of our exploits with our Sugars.  We even met up when I was on a business trip to her area, and I got to meet her Sugar, a gorgeously voluptuous woman of color. (That was another thing we had in common, lusciously curvaceous mares!)  When I spoke of my friend and her mare to my family, I spoke of them as "the other Sugar and her Mom."

When my Sugar left this earth, my friend was one of the first to reach out to me, and she supported me from afar with words of support, both on the blog and on Facebook.  A few years ago I'd had a saddle pad trimmed with a pink and green polka dot ribbon and embroidered with Sugar's name.  After I lost the Sainted Mare, I wrapped that up for my friend and sent it up to her, thinking it would look wonderful on her "pinto pony" and that maybe it would be a way to keep the "Sugar connection" going.

A friend of hers left a post on my friend's Facebook page, and I think it does a better job of saying what I mean to say better than any words I can think up on my own.  My heart goes out to you, my friend.  I'd like to think that both our Sugars are up there together, comparing notes and swapping stories about their crazy mothers.

If you bury her in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, she will come to you when you call – come to you over the far dim pastures of death, and down the remembered paths to your side again. And though you ride other living horses through life, they shall not shy at her or resent her coming, for she is yours and she belongs there.

 People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by her footfall, who hear no nicker pitched too fine for insensitive ears. people who may never really love a horse, smile at them, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth knowing.

The one place to bury a horse is in the heart of her mistress.


Author Unknown

Godspeed, Sugar.  You will be missed.