It was just another day at the part time job I took, to get myself off the laptop, moving my body, doing something I love. We were returning to the barn after our morning trail ride. There were about 50 guests on horseback. I was on my horse, posted up at a crosswalk to oversee guests crossing the horses’ path. About 20 feet away from a white bench.
That bench sits at the intersection of different activities and pathways. Guests often chill on it, maybe waiting to catch a photo of someone returning from the ride, or head into the pool, or just to enjoy the moment. They are on vacation, and soaking it up.
That’s what this man was doing. At least it looked that way until he collapsed.
One moment I, too, am soaking up the day, happy the guests enjoyed their ride, mentally ticking off the names of the horses I am still learning. With over 100 horses, that’s a lot of names and faces to match up. A lot of personalities to learn an adapt to.
And the next, I am a witness to tragedy.
I happened to glance over at that bench at the exact moment the man fell over. As if one moment he was happy and relaxed, and the next, he died.
That’s what is looked like as he hit the ground. I felt the woman’s scream more than I heard it. The man- her husband? I don’t know - was unresponsive, unconscious, just lying there as shock washed over all of us nearby.
I grabbed my radio and put a call out for medics as a bystander began CPR. Once help arrived, I returned to the barn as well - they didn’t need me in the way.
Our next ride was canceled- we could not lead dozens of guest on horseback past the ambulance as paramedics worked on their patient.
And there I was, on the other side of the wall I’d been on all those years ago, as I sat in the funeral home’s car, and then stood at my husband’s grave, our young children and our families alongside us, all of us in unimaginable pain - while just across the street, Little League baseball games were being played.
It felt in that moment, as if there were two worlds living side by side: one world where tragedy and suffering ruled the day, and another, where sunshine and happiness lived.
Like sitting on one side of a highway in stalled traffic for hours, while watching the other side whiz happily past - only much, much worse.
On that day at the resort, I was in the world where life went on, while just yards away, someone else’s ended.
It felt wrong for us to go about our business while tragedy unfolded so nearby.
But there was nothing we could do other than that.
So while we pasted smiles on for the other guests, while we groomed the horses and waited out the “delay” I paused for a few moments to bow my head and pray.
I prayed for the man -while we were never told what his outcome was, I know what I saw, and heard what guests witnessed, and I believe he died right there, on the ground, by that bench.
There was no fault on the resort’s side- the paramedics were there within minutes, and everything possible was done to help.
It was just “one of those things” that can happen to any one of us, at any moment, in any place.
Each day I am back at that resort, a few times a week, riding a horse past that bench, I see other guests sitting on it. Right where he had been sitting. I see guests laughing and talking right where he fell. It’s as if it never happened.
That is how fleeting we all are in this world. That is how this life is designed, to go on with our without us.
It is humbling, and terrifying, and sad, and beautiful all at once.
And for me it is another reminder, eqach time I see that bench, to savor every moment.
To let go of grudges.
To offer forgiveness.
To ask for forgiveness.
To go for that dream.
To let love win - every day.
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