The doctor’s words hit me hard, knocking me back on the exam table. He spoke to my mother about the pain in my legs, “She has ‘Osgood Slaughter’, a disease affecting the knees. Lisa must use her legs very little if she is to heal. If you can’t keep Lisa from using her legs, I’ll have to cast both of them for a year.”

Mother and I looked at each other our jaws dropped open. Mother looked back at the doctor, “It’s Summer time and she is an active nine year old. Could we first try keeping her on crutches?” she requested. They looked at me. I quickly told them I’d do anything to stay out of casts. To our relief, the Doctor agreed.

I was devastated, life as I knew it had evaporated. I moped about like a zombie as miserable days passed. Our house sat on the bluff above a wide beach. I sat on the verandah and watched my friends surf and play on the warm sand without me.

One mid-summer morning Mother’s friend called suggesting that I try riding one of their horses. They owned three trail horses and they weren’t riding one of them. She thought that one in particular would be suitable for me.

What! They have horses?! How had that information escaped this horse crazy kid? A kid that was pried off her Wonder Horse to eat. A kid that ran outside every evening before bed to wish on a star for a horse.

That next week would change my life forever. Five miles down the ocean bluff from our house was an old rough wooden boarding stable with 45 glorious horses. Corrugated metal roofing ran down the center of the rows of large stalls. It showed the wear of ocean storms and wood chewing horses. To me it looked like a glowing castle. Mother and I parked along the salty white fence of the sandy riding arena. The motley group of kids riding inside the arena curiously watched me hobble along on my crutches toward stall number 29. Inside stood a dusty rusted metal tack shed, but to me it looked like a treasure chest. The large shed contained only four things: grooming tools, a bareback pad, hackamore bridle and a big sack of alfalfa molasses sweet feed. Then, emerging from the shadowed shelter in the back of the stall appeared ‘Dundee’; a friendly freckle faced camel brown dun mare. She was tall, bony and unkempt; the most beautiful horse I had ever seen.

For the next three years, I appeared almost daily at the stable to swap my two weak legs for Dundee’s four strong ones. Never mentioning to my Mother all the falls I took, I learned to ride. Mounted bareback, Dundee and I moved as one. I spent my days cruising miles of grass pastures in the sea breeze. Meandering down the steep hills to the beach, we galloped on golden sand and swam in the blue Pacific.

I taught Dundee how to catch a wave and bodysurf to shore, just as my Father had taught me. We would stand in the ocean, watching outside for the best wave of the set, the one of the right height and shape. As the wave approached, we would move out toward it, pushing through the closer ones. A moment before the chosen wave reached us we would turn to face the beach. As the wave rose behind her I clung to her slippery wet neck, my fingers laced tight in the mane and we would start to canter in. At just the right moment, I would cue her to jump. At that moment the wave lifted her large body and carried it toward the shore. We loved that feeling of being weightless, as if no longer connected to our bodies. As the wave washed over us I was lifted above her back, my legs pulled up to a jumping position. As the wave set us back down I regained my balance on her back and we cantered ashore. We rested for a moment on the sand, but she was eager to turn back into the water and wait for the next wave to ride. That was a perfect ride. When I first started, the surf knocked me off many times. I would float next to her, my fingers entwined in her mane, my legs streaming out behind as Dundee galloped forward dragging me through the water. If I lost hold, I had to struggle though the water to catch Dundee without tangling in her legs. If I missed getting a hold of her it was a good walk back to the stable. Of course, I didn’t tell Mother about that part either.

Together we had become healthy and in love with life. Dundee taught me the language of horses. A subtle non verbal, language of the body. Passing her keen gifts of being able to read every motion I made, of listening to my breath, of knowing my mood and reflecting it back to me. She knew me better than I knew my young self. Dundee made a Horse-woman out of a child.

That third year my legs were healed and incredibly strong, and my heart knew it could never again be whole without the love of a horse. Others asked me to train their horses to swim like Dundee. While my peers made money from childcare, I provided horse-care, with swimming lessons.

One day, while I was exercising a horse on the beach I came upon a frustrated man trying to get a horse into the ocean. I offered help and was hired on the spot by the new fancy stable that rehabilitated racehorses. Now it was my turn to help horses fully recover the use of their legs.

Thirty-seven years later I still rehabilitate horses, using the gifts that Dundee gave to me. Now, when something in life is knocking me back, I will trade my two legs for a horse’s four and with them under me, gain the strength to go forward.