Or maybe they do. Maybe they know that it’s a quiet time, that people may be more aware of their hearts, hold each other, eat special food and celebrate. It is not just Christmas but any manmade holiday.

My vet Dr. Larry Nolen said this when he came out Christmas Day to see my horse Patches. I knew Patches was dying, and I knew that it didn’t matter what day it was, how many people I needed to disturb to help him, it was his time. He was just a month shy of his 27th birthday. I never dreamed he would live as long as he did, given various health challenges, but he did. He was amazing.

We were surrounded by wonderful supportive ones. Dying for horses requires knowing where to put the horse down in order to easily access the body, calling the person who is going to pick up the body, making decisions as to cremation or burial, etc. The person facing the loss of their horse is not always prepared. But those that needed to be there for us – the vet, the livestock removal person, friends, were all summoned and ready.

I didn’t start out to talk about this because it’s usually the part no one wants to think or talk about. We usually want to consider the release of pain for the beloved horse because that’s highly important, and we want to envision a place in the afterlife our animal can go to where there are friends, they are free from pain and able to run in green pastures as they did as foals.

Interwoven with these painful realities were the stories told, of the Patches other people knew. Before I knew him: Patches the ribbon-winning show horse, Patches the therapeutic riding horse who lost his job because at some point he became uncomfortable in his body and needed to transition to another life. He was my granddaughter, Ariana’s, horse. These are stories that talk about accomplishments that people mostly identify with. The horse’s worth. Our friends recalled stories of him – how he would free lunge around the horse I was lunging, how he loved a good party. How he danced with a plastic barrel – he leapt in the air and pushed the barrel with his nose, and loved liberty dancing. He had a great sense of humor.

In the last few weeks of his life, Patches and his stablemate, Barroco, became close friends. They would eat from the same hay bag or pile of hay. They would eat leaves together quietly. Barroco was the perfect companion for him, because he didn’t push Patches as his other stablemates had always done. Patches was always low horse in any herd, and it was difficult for him to gain the self-esteem he deserved. He usually caved to pressure.

Patches and Barroco pushed each other gently, but mostly just hung out together. The soft flow of their time together had a rhythm and pace that seemed to quiet the high-strung Barroco. Patches was naturally a quiet horse so I felt that was what was happening – Patches was quieting Barroco’s nervous system.

But after Patches passed on Christmas Day, I realized more was going on there. Patches was also teaching Barroco things that he knew, preparing him for the next stage of his life. He was passing on the torch – valuable information.

Patches has always been very tuned into the universe as all horses are but differently. Walking with him I could sense the earth, stones, birds, planets. He was a very deep horse but also very soft and kind. As he aged and was no longer ridden, I saw more of this in him, I saw him more clearly, the prism of his thinking that crossed continents, felt the world beyond his corrals, the drumbeat of horses’ hooves running across plains somewhere, the rhythm of days that we humans are often too busy to notice.

I feel so much more than the loss of my dear friend and partner, Patches. In the days since his passing, I have moved from shock to grief to relief to loss, mixed with the necessary arrangements made, to gratitude for the many years I have been blessed with to know and love Patches, to explore his world with him. He, perhaps more than any horse, encourages me to look forward to the next chapter, and what comes from him into that next chapter, so that I will always feel his presence everywhere and in the horses who come after him.

I’m also so grateful for the students and teachers who came and worked with Patches, those who took care of him, who I’m know extended his quality of life with their special attention to him. I know he feels the same.

With each animal, there is always a thread that holds you to them, that helps guide you. That is what the love you built on earth does, binds you together eternally. In that I find comfort, as daily now I feel him in his new iteration, weightless and free of his earthly body.