Our Beloved Halim

Our sweet 9 year old chestnut gelding, Brandywine’s Halim, crossed over last night. I went out to feed the horses and Halim the chow hound didn’t appear. I called out the alarm and all the family members went looking. He was found in the barn pasture standing on 3 legs. The right rear leg was held slack and had a compound fracture on the upper bone. Apparently another horse got tired of Halim’s gangstering their food and gave him a good kick. In hindsight, I realized all the horses had been hanging out by the front of the barn keeping him company before I called them to dinner.
Halim patiently awaited for humans to arrive. He had pivoted back and forth 90 degrees on his good rear leg, drilling that foot into the earth and leaving a berm between his front and rear legs. When each of his humans came to him to say good-bye, he tried to reassure them. When our foster son who had bonded with him crouched and sobbed hugging his knees, Halim bent his head down to nuzzle him. He was a loving other centered therapy animal unto the end, even in his own extremity.
I cut off a large piece of mane and tail. I explained to Halim that we all loved him and thanked him for his love and service and explained we would send him over to the other side of the veil. I sent everyone else up to the house and a dear friend who had come over with a .45 caliber hand gun did the deed for us. Halim didn’t even hear the click of the trigger, it was over so instantly. We all gathered in the house in a circle and prayed together afterwards.
Many of our friends offered to help transport the body to a place where another friend was going to stay home from work and dig a deep grave with his tractor. A neighbor offered to put his back-hoe attachment onto his tractor and dig a grave right next to the body this morning so we don’t have to move it at all. That is what we will be doing when it gets light out.
Halim was one of our “house horses”. He would come in to Claudia and love on her in her bedroom for brief visits. He had been supplemented with bottle feeding when he was a baby and never lost his closeness and loving demeanor to his humans. He was our daughter’s horse and she was away in Portland when it happened, but we were all in touch thanks to cell phones. I made braids of his hair for her, our foster son, and my Claudia for remembrances. I was okay until I went back to cover the body and remembered the nobility of Halim in his final moments when he ministered one final time to us and especially to his foster kid. Then I just sobbed to him and the stars.