As a young child of divorced parents I often found an escape from the chaos of the adult world I was subjected to by visiting the stables. I didn’t have money for the riding lessons I so desperately wanted so I worked at the stable every Saturday in order to earn a free lesson. I would groom all the lesson horses, get them ready for the next lesson, and then walk them afterwards.

I typically would ride in a lesson at the end of the day, after the horse had been ridden for three hour-long sessions. The horse of my choice was Goodness Gracious, a small Appaloosa mare with a huge white circle in the middle of her face. GG was a spitfire, often causing chaos by fleeing from someone who was handling her. She liked to mix things up, and had true character.

Despite the fact she was probably exhausted by the time I rode her she always managed to give me her all, pulling out all the stops for an exciting jumping lesson. I loved her desperately, and I was sure GG knew it. During the week at school I would write “Goodness Gracious” over and over in my 6th grade classroom, day dreaming of an escape on her from my world, and from hers….where we would run away together to the great outdoors.

I showed her at small schooling shows and we would always do well in the ribbons. She wasn’t the most expensive, well bred, or gorgeous horse, but everyone noticed her. Her spirit was uncontainable.

The years marched on. I went off to college, had boyfriends, and grew into adult life. I never forgot her and kept a picture of her and me at a horse show. I was 28 years old, and I began to think of her less and less. Then one night when I woke up rattled and in a sweat, and tried to remember the dream that had startled me awake. I could only remember feeling that GG was in it and she needed me.

I went back to sleep, then I got up and went about my day, and the next several days, trying to put that chill out of my mind even as a nagging feeling would sporadically wash over me. Weeks later it happened again, the same dream, and that same feeling. I began trying to figure out what was happening, why I was so disturbed by this. It had been years since I had been to the stables where GG “worked”.

I’ll never forget what happened next. I was sitting in my cubicle at an insurance claims department where I worked and that feeling came over me again. This was too much to take. I stopped working and stared blankly at my computer. I turned to the clock. It was 11:30, close enough to leave for lunch.

I grabbed my purse and drove in a complete daze straight to GG’s stables. I saw my trainer Sandy, and after the initial, “Oh my Gosh…How long has it been”…she says, out of the blue, “Do you remember Goodness?”

I froze. I had the words at the tip of my tongue. I wanted to tell Sandy that, ‘Yes, that’s why I’m here in office clothes in the middle of the week! I have been having weeks of recurring dreams about GG and I felt she needed me, and so now I’m here!’

Sadly all I could manage to actually say was a meek “yes, where is she?” Sandy told me that GG went lame a few months ago and there was nothing they could do, so GG ‘went down the road’ a few months ago.
‘Down the road’ means GG was sent to auction, to the butchers. My blood ran cold. I felt paralyzed inside. After all the years of service that was the payoff for that beautiful horse; sent to the butchers so they could make $500 bucks. It was a cruel fate for the horse of my dreams. I couldn’t speak.

As I write this at 34 years old I have tears streaming down my face. I cannot describe my feelings of guilt, desperation and helplessness. After all those years the bond GG and I had was still there, hidden, and I can’t say how much I wish I had acted on those initial feelings of her “calling” out to me. She was calling for me to save her and I wasn’t there, I didn’t understand.

Since then I have had other dreams about GG, dreams of her and other horses that I know have passed on, running in the beautiful fields I day dreamed of as a child…. Fields where she is free, she is safe, and she is waiting for me. Perhaps she is still calling to me.

Christina Chodacki