|
Exercises
Some
Sort of Magic
by Annette Foglion
On
a crisp fall morning, Michele Davis opened the barn door to
feed Mac and brush him up. As sunlight streamed through the
barn, the horse was wide awake and waiting in his stall, blowing
steam through his nostrils in the chilly air. "There's a little
girl coming to see you," Michele told him. "And she really
needs your help."
Later Teresa and Jeff Freshcorn came up the
driveway toward Michele's home in West Mansfield, Ohio. With
them was their four-year-old daughter, Jessika, who had withdrawn
into her own impenetrable world. Her condition,
delay onset ,
could not be effectively treated. But when the Freshcorns
heard that Michele owned an old horse who had a special way
with kids, they decided to give him a try.
You
really do work some sort of magic, Michele thought as she
stroked Mac's neck. Indeed the horse had touched
many lives over the years—and none more than her own.
Back in 1979 Michele, then 32, was teaching
Latin American literature at Ohio State University in Columbus.
She often recalled how much she had enjoyed riding horses
as a little girl. One
day she decided to splurge on horse-jumping lessons at a local
riding stable. She was paired with a black saddle
horse, called Skunk for his distinctive white legs and white
tail.
Again and again Michele came back to ride
and jump with the horse. She loved how he'd leap over fences
without ever faltering. So when Michele learned he was for
sale, she was thrilled—but confused. "Why are you letting
such a good horse go?" she asked the owner.
The owner explained that he guessed the horse
was about 17 years old. "I want to find a good retirement
home for him," he said.
Michele knew that many horses don't live past
20. But the owner was asking only $1500. Michele thought it
a fair price, and bought him.
She immediately
him McDougall— a name that match his dignified demeanor—and called him Mac for his easygoing nature.
Walking Miracle
In the next few years Mac continued jumping with ease. Meanwhile,
Michele was intrigued that many people in the area seemed
to recognize him. "I can't believe he's still around," they
would tell her. "He must be pretty old."
Michele traced Mac's birthplace to Columbus. There she found
an old ranch hand who had worked at the stable where Mac was
born. "It was 1948," he told her. "The owners bred that horse
for color. They wanted a parade horse."
The owners named him Mr. Tie & Tail for his shiny black
coat and white flourishes. Michele also learned of Mac's subsequent
names: Whispering Winds, One-for-the-Road, Houdini (for his
ability to get out of a locked barn, a talent Michele discovered
one night when he let all her horses out) and then Skunk.
It was amazing: Mac appeared to be about 30 years old. To
get a
assessment, Michele consulted Dr. Ronald Riegel of Marysville,
Ohio. When he finished with his exam, he shook his head and
whistled. "This is the oldest horse I've ever seen," he said.
Riegel, too, thought the horse was about 30.
Michele marveled that Mac was still standing. When she rode
him as a show horse in parades, he never missed one of her
signals as she steered him into formation. Mac was a walking
miracle.
In 1986 Michele needed her own miracle. She had lost her
university job and was broke. Eventually she was forced to
sell Mac.
The first two times she did, however, Mac got sick and the
new owners returned him. Once back with Michele, Mac quickly
got better.
When a third buyer came around and handed Michele a check
for $300, Mac collapsed. "What's wrong with him?" asked the
shocked buyer. 
"I think he's dying," Michele
said, giving the buyer back
his check.
This time Mac was seriously
ill. He lay sprawled in the barn, trembling and sweating with
a fever.
Over the next few weeks
neighborhood children would come by to check on Mac and talk
to him. One little boy brushed his ,
and a little girl read to him. One afternoon when Mac heard
the children coming up the driveway, he went to the window
by his stall and .
That's
when Michele knew he was going to make it.
Enduring Hero
As Mac got better, however,
Michele's problems intensified. Although she found another
job at the university, she was still struggling to pay her
bills. One day a neighbor phoned her at work to tell her that
her barn was on fire. By the time Michele reached home, nothing
remained but a pile of cinders. Rushing out into the pasture,
she found her three surviving horses; among them was Mac.
"When we opened the barn
door, two horses tried to run back in," a firefighter told
her. "But that old horse kept pushing them out into the field."
The fire made Michele think
she was .
Unable to sleep one night, she went for a walk, ending up
near the makeshift barn her neighbors helped her build. As
she sat lost in thought, she looked up to see Mac standing
quietly at her side. "You're old reliable, aren't you?" she
said. "You'd never desert me."
As Michele sat under the
stars with Mac, she thought about how much he had endured.
Time
and again he had shown her how miraculous life could be.
Michele
resolved to press on too. In the 1990s, pursuing
an interest in natural health, Michele began to work with
children who suffered from various disorders. When
word about her gentle old horse got around among the parents,
she invited them to bring their children to visit Mac.
It was then that Mac's special skills started to blossom.
There was four-year-old
Samuel, who suffered from hyperactivity. His parents found
that after each visit with Mac, he would calm down for weeks.
And shortly after three-year-old Payton started visiting Mac,
he stopped wetting his bed. "How did you do it?" Michele asked
the little boy. "I dreamed Mac told me not to," he said proudly.
"Pretty Horsey" 
Mac's best magic, however,
has been worked on little Jessika. When Teresa Freshcorn first
contacted Michele in 1996, she was desperate. Jessika had
stopped speaking, and her eyes never met anyone's. She only
slept for 20 minutes at a time, and when she awoke she'd retreat
to a corner. One of the things that hurt her parents most,
however, happened when Jessika's seven-year-old brother, Tyler,
would give his sister a hug: invariably she drew away.
Michele suggested that
seeing Mac might help. Upon arriving at Michele's house, Jessika
just stared off into the distance. "Come into the barn," Michele
said to her. "There's someone who wants to meet you."
Despite Mac's slight swayback,
the Freshcorns thought he looked quite dignified. Teresa asked
Jessika, "Do you want to sit on the pretty horsey?" The child
already seemed transfixed with Mac, but when her father tried
to pick her up, she squirmed away.
Mac walked slowly toward
Jessika and put his head way down so she could pet him. The
little girl who never seemed to notice anything stared at
him with wide eyes. Then Jessika's father placed her on Mac's
back. She let out a squeal of delight, but Mac remained calm.
Suddenly the girl quieted
down and with curiosity began looking all around. Then came
the most wonderful sound the Freshcorns had ever heard. A
tiny voice called out, "What is that?"
The voice came from Jessika—the same little
girl who hadn't spoken a coherent sentence in over six months.
"It's, it's a beautiful
horse," Teresa sputtered tearfully.
Jessika laid her back flat
against Mac's, letting her arms dangle at his sides. That
night, for the first time in over a year, she slept without
waking up once. The next day she spoke two more sentences.
First she asked for water, then she announced, "I want to
play!"
Today Jessika visits Mac
at least once a month, and her progress continues. She communicates
more regularly. Recently she tested normal for her age in
alphabetical and numerical skills.
One day while visiting Mac, Jessika began
singing. Then noticing Tyler nearby, she motioned for him
to come over and play. As he did, Tyler gave his sister a
hug. This time, instead of recoiling, Jessika hugged him back.
(1 418 words)
(From Reader's Digest, August 1998)
Text
|
