Life with Gail was a creative time on many fronts and our love grew. I found connection in Jackson using integrity as I pursued my contemporary role in the community.
As our lives merged, I found out more about the woman I love. An episode during her childhood had significant impact. One day in grade school, the teacher announced to the class that she read in the newspaper that Mr. and Mrs. Jamieson were getting a divorce. Gail was shocked. Nobody told her. Her parents hadn’t confided something this important to their own kids.
Finding this out in front of her peers had a shaming and shattering relational effect. It set up an inability to trust others, especially men, and drove a wedge between her and her father. I didn’t know it, but this event influenced a relational style that had manifested itself into a series of broken relationships.
At the threshold of this new manner of living my life, I entered into providing what I could to this loving exchange by applying the recently acquired spiritual principles. We had the blessings of her stepfather and her sister. We entered into true love.
Immersed in the fellowship of AA, we found additional ways to enrich our lives through a special relationship. A man who encouraged me to meditate, taught me relationship skills and loving responses to the usual bumps in the road.
With the guidance of my sponsor, plus his wife, an avid Alanon who influenced Gail, our love began to expand. We began to build a relationship on a foundation of spiritual principles. Immersed in a permanent contemporary lifestyle, I began to expand my role in the community. I sought to develop all areas of my life – business, connection with community, and family.
I sought God’s will. I had no idea, or knew how, this prerequisite would impact my life. Things came into perfect alignment for me. Several dynamics moved to shape my future. A miracle was in the works.
During another visit to see my friend Clarence, I received a message to contact Chuck Grant. Chuck had some news. During a conversation with his colleagues in the dressage world, he found out about an opportunity that existed at the barn of Vi Hopkins. Violet was best known as the pioneer who wanted all the dressage instructors on the same page, so to speak, to promote a standard for teaching. Violet started the USDF Instructors clinic and hosted it at her farm each year. She needed help with the chores around the farm and the situation came with riding lessons and horse training. Although I recognized a tremendous opportunity, not having a horse frustrated my ability to take advantage of it.
My saddlebred horse friends in Fowlerville had gotten the word out in their conversations with colleagues out about a guy who had lost the saddlebred he made into a circus dancing horse. A couple in Reading, Michigan, who raised saddlebred horses had been in an automobile accident. The husband figured that when he got his broken leg out of the brace, he would resume training the colts. A few years had gone by and his leg was still in a brace and the colts were getting older. He finally started selling horses.
He kept his two favorite mares and his favorite colt; a 16.2 hand sorrel gelding who was five years old. The colt had never had any training. He was still out on pasture with his mother.
Through my friends, he heard about what I had accomplished with my last horse. He liked what had been achieved. He had empathy for the tragedy that interrupted my career and recognized an opportunity. He wanted me to have his favorite horse. He contacted me.
At that time, I was getting my meager finances back in order. When I received word about this horse, I had to be prudent and reluctant due to my situation. I did not have the resources to pay what this horse was worth. Still, this man wanted me to have this horse.
He encouraged me to come look at him and when I did, to make it work, he made this tall, flashy horse a gift. I became overwhelmed with gratitude. I immediately recognized that the door to a unique opportunity had opened. My ambitions with classic horsemanship were not over. This opportunity opened up a whole new world. I now had everything I needed to take advantage of the opportunity at Violet’s barn.
The process of training a horse to the highest level – a High School horse – starting at the beginning, using basic concepts would reveal a vast, time- honored artform. Starting with Vi, the coming years provided an impressive series of top-shelf horsemanship mentors who took me under their wing. There would be times I doubted my sanity for taking on the daunting project of making a high school horse from the ground up.
At Tristan Oaks, with the watchful eye of a perfectionist guiding me, the long arduous process combined time, specific technique and hard work. As I attempted to accomplish the peculiar demands of this particular woman, I wondered if I would ever realize success. But just as anyone in the miracle business knows; more would be revealed.
Letterfly Writes 