A Sue Memory: The Snow Horse

My yard, Winter 2013-14

Sue was so into horses that she used to draw pictures of them constantly.  Mostly pencil drawings, the horses with flowing manes would elegantly gallop through the page.

She also had a habit of pulling me into her room, making me kneel on the floor next to her bed, and forcing me to pray for her to get a horse.  I would stare at her Bugs Bunny sheets while she loudly and passionately prayed, "Lord, we are both asking you, from the bottom of our hearts, to please give me a horse."

I felt guilty when I'd think, "Well, there are things I'd like too. I've been wanting a puppy. And a lot of candy."

"We would take really good care of my horse, Lord, so please, please send me a horse.  Amen."

I would defiantly be whispering, "and some candy for me and a puppy too please" when she would elbow me, hard, in the ribs.  "Say AMEN!"

Sam in the snow

Amen.

Months went by and no horse had magically appeared in our backyard, so she changed her tactics.  We began to pray that our family would move to Venezuela.

"Why Venezuela?" I asked one afternoon when we had said our amens.

"Because there are a ton of horses there, of course!"  She matter-of-factly answered, while shooing me out of her room.  I was really only allowed in to give her prayer sessions extra weight.

One Winter evening she went outside to play in the snow. She told me to wait inside. She was outside for so long I forgot that I was supposed to be waiting for her.  Finally, she called to me to come out and see what she had made.

There in our humble backyard stood a beautiful sparkling horse made of snow.

"It's big enough that you can sit on it.  Go ahead, try it out!" She smiled.

I was stunned and amazed.  I could, indeed, sit on the horse.  I played on the horse for days.  I let certain of my carefully selected friends come over to sit on it (carefully!)  I bragged ceaselessly about the snow horse my sister had made for me.  I was in heaven.

Future snow horse builders? Maybe

The horse eventually melted.  Our family never moved to Venezuela.  Sue never had a surprise horse appear out of nowhere (although in the early 90's she briefly owned a wild mustang who wouldn't even let her touch it).

But for me, it was as if God, himself had sent a horse to my backyard as an answer to a repeated prayer that I was forced to pray.

To me, it seemed that Sue was all-powerful and could make anything happen.