Page 73 of All We Thought We Knew
“You should talk to her about Fred. She might have some suggestions.”
I sat with Mama after she dozed off, my mind whirling.
I’d never heard of using horses to help people, especially those like Fred who no longer had use of their legs. Nash had proven that losing an arm couldn’t slow him down, but to lose the ability to walk would be completely life-altering. Yet the moment Fred mentioned horseback riding in his youth and his obvious disappointment that he would never do so again, the idea of helping him wouldn’t let me go.
I hurried downstairs and found LuAnn in the living room, looking through an old issue ofLifemagazine. She glanced up when I came in.
“Mama’s asleep. Do you have a minute? I’d like to talk to you about something.”
She laid the magazine aside. “Of course. Do you have questions about your mother?”
“No,” I said, then changed it to, “well, yes, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about right now. Mama said you’ve heard of using horses to help people like Fred.”
She smiled as I sat in the armchair. “I was so pleased when Avatold me what you and Nash are doing for his friend. Poor man. I’ve known people through the years who’ve become paralyzed, usually after some terrible accident. Many of them simply give up or end up in a nursing home far sooner than they should.”
“But what about using horses to help them? How does that work if they can’t feel their legs?”
“I read an article in a medical journal not long ago about a doctor in Canada who started a therapeutic horseback riding program. If memory serves, his first patient was a woman who is quadriplegic.”
My mouth fell open. “Doesn’t that mean she’s paralyzed from the neck down? How could she ride a horse?”
“I don’t know much about it, I’m afraid.” A thoughtful look crossed her face. “But I’m sure I still have the journal with the article in it somewhere. I’d be happy to hunt it down. Apparently, horse therapy has been used for centuries for all sorts of physical and mental challenges. Which makes perfect sense, considering God created those beautiful animals. Surely they have a greater purpose beyond carrying people here and there or pulling wagons and such.”
Her comment mirrored my own beliefs. “I’ve always thought so too. When I take Moonlight out for a ride, I feel better, way down deep.”
“I believe Fred will too, once he gets the hang of it.”
Nurse Bradford went to make a cup of hot cocoa for Mama while I went out to the barn.
I found Nash already at work, measuring wood for the ramp. He’d removed his jacket and wore a ball cap backwards, with the bill facing the back of his head. His dark hair curled over the rim of the cap, longer than I could ever remember him wearing it in high school. He and Mark were both on the football team, so Coach Cooper’s rules on hair length had always prevented them from letting their locks get too long.
With his concentration on the lumber he’d purchased in town, Nash hadn’t noticed me yet. I stayed in the shadows and took the opportunity to study him, watching how he used his one hand to do the job of two. I never realized how much I took having two functioning arms and hands for granted until I started helping him build the ramp. To compensate for his missing limb, he used his body—hips, knees, and even his booted feet—to aid him in maneuvering the heavy wood.
I thought about other soldiers like Nash. Young men who’d come home from war without an arm. Some without both arms. How were they coping? Hopefully their homelife was better than Nash’s, and they had people who loved them helping them adjust, but I knew not everyone was that fortunate.
Nash straightened and glanced my way. “Hey, I didn’t know you were there.”
My face heated at being caught spying on him. “I was trying to picture Fred in his wheelchair, going up the ramp,” I fibbed. I came forward and stood next to him. “We can’t make it too steep, otherwise Fred won’t be able to get up it by himself.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too.” He reached for a sheet of paper lying on a bale of hay, torn out of a spiral notebook by the looks of the shredded edge. A simple technical drawing of the platform was on it. “I figured we’d make the ramp in two sections, each about six feet long, with some kind of connector underneath that will allow us to dismantle the ramp easily.” He eyed the finished structure nearby. “We kept the height of the platform at two-and-a-half feet, so a ramp that’s approximately twelve feet long should keep it from being too steep.”
I stared at him in amazement. “How is it you can figure all this out? You were awful at math in school.”
He chuckled. “I don’t mind math, but grades didn’t mean anything to me back then. No one at home cared if I went to schoolor not. It probably would’ve been easier for my mom if I’d quit and worked full time. I kept going because of Mark. Anytime I talked about quitting, he’d give me the rundown of all the reasons I needed to stay and graduate.”
“I didn’t know you wanted to quit.”
He nodded. “I didn’t need to go to school to be a mechanic. I was always good with engines and fixing things. But Mark argued I shouldn’t be satisfied just working in an auto shop. He thought I should be the owner of one, and to him, that meant I needed to stay in school.”
I smiled, even as bittersweet memories of Mark’s enthusiasm for life brought a pang of sadness. “He was the most positive, upbeat person I’ve ever known. I used to say that he got all the goodness of Mama and I got all the sourness of Dad.”
Nash gave me a look. “You aren’t sour, and neither is your dad. You both just see the world differently than Mark did. But you’re right. He was a glass-half-full kind of guy. I needed him way more than he needed me.”
My throat tightened. “I did too.”
We set to work on building the ramp, following Nash’s specifications. Dad came by midmorning and seemed satisfied with all we’d accomplished.
“As soon as it’s ready, let Dawn’s Rose get used to it. I don’t know if Fred’s wheelchair will scare her or not, so you might also find something, like a wheelbarrow, to roll up and down the ramp while she’s near it.”
