A week of tragedies

I suppose every week is full of human tragedies. It's part of everyday life. But there were 2 events this week in the media that caught my attention, and really choked me up.

Rebecca Greene Eventing

I moved to Stroudsburg, PA from New Albany, IN when I was 11. Stroudsburg is a small, cute town at the southern end of the Pocono Mountains. My mom still lives in the area. I went to college at East Stroudsburg University, waitressed at Molly's in downtown Stroudsburg, dated a guy from the Main Street Music Store (the coolest place to buy CDs and records), and it was during this time that I had Milo. I only knew 2 other people in the Poconos that evented: Karen Trebitz and Julie Stewart. There wasn't much of an eventing community in the Poconos to say the least.

Flash forward 10 years...this past weekend there was a barn fire in the Poconos that killed all 9 horses stabled at the property, including 2 event horses owned by Rebecca Greene, a resident of Stroudsburg. I don't know Becky, I just know of her. When I was horse shopping I came across her website and discovered she lived in my old neck of the woods, retrained racehorses and competed in eventing. Wish I had known her back in my days there.

My only experience with fire, is not an experience of my own, it's one of observation. Back in 2007, I had moved in with a boyfriend and relocated to Doylestown, PA. I had been living with my good friend Tavy just down the road from Pleasant Hollow Farm in Hellertown, PA. Tavy went through the unimaginable experience of having her house burn down, with her two beloved cats and all her possessions inside. We lived in an apartment on the second floor of a renovated post office building in downtown Hellertown. The fire started with the furnace in the basement. Firefighters did break into her apartment, the smoke was too great and they just confirmed there were no people inside before leaving. The cats were likely hiding. They died in the fire that consumed the building and burnt it clear to the ground. Nothing was salvageable. Worse than losing one's possessions, is the heartache and guilt that accompanies us when we realize someone we loved died in a horrific way, scared and alone.

Eva and Oliver were wonderful cats and Tavy had a very special bound with them - she rescued them as kittens. I loved them dearly too. Because Tavy was allergic to cats, they couldn't sleep in her bedroom so they slept with me and Chaplin (who was not amused having to share space with 2 kittens). Erin explained that they undoubtedly died from smoke inhalation before the fire got to them, but it is still hard to comprehend. It was an unbelievably difficult time for Tavy, but in time, she did preserver and recover, both emotionally and financially. She moved to Chicago, got a new job, and started a new journey. In the end, is was apparent she was a very brave and strong woman.

My heart goes out to Becky. One of the horses she lost was Scooby Who. She bought him straight off the track in 2007 and trained him up to Preliminary level. She had just moved up to prelim last fall and he was her first prelim horse. A dream was met by reaching prelim, but more dreams had begun, as Scooby looked to have the potential to go beyond prelim to the upper levels of the sport. For those of us without large funds, finding the right horse with the right talent and mind to go beyond the lower levels of the sport is much like looking for a needle in the haystack, or picking a chocolate out of a box. You just never quite know what you're going to get. Becky found her horse and lost him in a fire. It is tragic because the road to recovery is a long one. She will start over again, with more young horses and it will take time to see what's she got.

Horses and pets really are like children. We think about them night and day, worry about their care, fuss about their health and education. They become our past, present and future. When you lose them, you do lose a part of yourself. The emptiness can flood you as your daily routine is completely turned upside down. I know this from when I put Milo down. Suddenly, you don't know what to do with yourself or where you are going or what the focus of your life is anymore. It's a difficult time to say the least. But things do get better with time; we recover and grow and what we learn about ourselves through a tragedy is really a great gift.

Sarah Burke & Jasmin Edson

Which leads me to Sarah Burke, who died this week. A Canadian Freestyle Skiier, Sarah was at the top of her sport. Last week she was training in the Park City half pipe, completed a routine trick and fell on landing. Observers noted that it didn't appear to be a serious fall, but she never got back up. She tore a vertebral artery in her neck, bled into her brain and went into cardiac arrest on the scene. She was transported to the hospital and died 9 days later, on a Thursday. She was 29.

Why does this shake me up? Because it reminds me of Jasmin Edson in many, many ways. Jasmin died 2 days after a minor, everyday fall off of a young horse. She died on Thursday, June 12, 2003. She was 23.

What happened? She was jump schooling a young horse in a lesson with Jane. After one fence, the mare bucked playfully. Jasmin was laughing; laughing and falling. She got caught up in the horse's hooves as she fell and was struck on the side of her head, just under her helmet. She suffered a severe head injury and broke many of the bones in her face. The doctors thought she would recover despite the seriousness of her injury and were planning reconstructive surgery on her face for early the following week. We knew it was serious though and talked about our fears that she would never come out of it the same. Things changed quickly in the 48 hours she was in the hospital. Wednesday night Jasmin had severe hemorrhaging in her brain. Subsequent tests showed she was brain dead and she was removed from life support. Just like that, she was gone.

Like Sarah, Jasmin lived a beautiful, full life and everyone loved her. She was a wonderful person who was open to all of life's experiences. Good and bad, she embraced it all. Sarah was at the top of her sport, training for the X Games. Jasmin had yet to reach her peak, but even so, she was already a gorgeous rider that we all were inspired to emulate. She was competing at the preliminary level of eventing when she died, but no doubt, with the right horse, would have gone even farther. Still to this day, I can remember watching her practicing dressage and memorizing the position of her seat, hands and legs. Jasmin would sometimes ride in the evenings and I would have a chance to bum around the ring, talking with her. I loved those evenings.

A few weeks before her accident, we were in the barn mucking stalls. For some reason we got to talking about dying and how the world had it all wrong. Dying wasn't a state of being, just a moment in time - a transition before something else. Jasmin talked about being free of her body, and all the insecurities and doubts that come with it. We hypothesized about a state of being that was more than we knew or could comprehend. I am lucky to have known some of her thoughts about dying. When she did die, I knew she was not afraid of it. It held too much wonder for her. It was just another life experience after all. It was still hard for us to accept all the same. We drank and we cried. I remember learning the following Monday that she had been cremated. It was so final. When I got to work Tuesday morning, I sat at my desk, called my mom, and no words would come out. There were no thoughts, just pure emotion. I could only sob.

Why do wonderful people in their prime die? Why can't we all die peacefully on a beach in our golden years? Who knows for sure; it's a part of our life's story that is borderline incomprehensible. We can't understand the meaning of death for years after the fact - at least for those who are left behind. In the case of Jasmin, her death was a gift. Her family set an unforgettable example in how they handled her death. Despite their grief, their love and acceptance of the situation was so powerful, so moving, you couldn't help but see into a different level of consciousness. It was apparent why Jasmin was the incredible woman she was. They were firm in their belief that Jasmin lead a perfect life, true to herself, and they had no regrets for there were no other choices Jasmin should or could have made.

I think its hard to hear that death is a gift. But when you step outside the grief and have a few years to reflect (life does take time after all), you see that it is. I changed after Jasmin died; my life got so much better. I met people I would never have met otherwise; experienced things I never would have experienced otherwise. I learned more about my true self than I had ever known before. A whole new life path opened up for me. It took years to see that it began with that moment. But my perspective now makes me realize that death is not what it seems, even for those of us who go on living.

Jasmin competing Cody sometime in 2002/3...