Tears of Pain
Published by GHC • Aug 24th, 2009 • Category: Fictionby Violet Inkpen, age 13
The snow stung at my face. My cheeks were red and chapped. I stood in the middle of the storm, lilies in my hands, my cape swirling around me, my hair blowing in the wind, my eyes dripping tears. I looked down at the stone marker and cried openly. My fingers tightened around the flowers. The wind whipped my hair back and forth towards me and away from me, sending chills up my whole body. I was choked with emotion.
Slowly I knelt down in the freezing snow, blinking away the pain in my knee. I reached out and gently stroked the stone, whispering words of love. My lips burned and itched with cold, my eyes closed against the snow flurries flying at me. I took a deep, shaky breath. Finally I could hear myself over the wind.
“…And school is canceled for the day so I decided to come visit you. I miss you so much…” I stopped to bite my lip, fighting the tears that would only make my face even colder. “I never thought I’d loose you! I know it is part of life, to loose a friend, but you were so much more! So much! The way you tugged my hair, the way you rested on my shoulder, the way you tickled my chin with your lip, how you made me laugh and listened to my… problems. How can I ever replace you?” I looked down at my half mangled flowers, a pitiful offering. I gulped. Tears of pain and sorrow streamed down my face. I no longer could feel my fingers, my toes, my knee, or anything for that matter. The pain of the freezing ground was replaced with heartache. I was overcome with grief.
“Why?” I whispered, leaning close to the grave. I place the flowers on the little ledge, next to the half buried picture frame of me and my horse. Then I wrapped my arms around the stone, pressing my cheek to the cold surface. “I miss you Star, I miss you terribly! I used to hug you, kiss your cheek, brush your mane out of your eyes, tell you everything that made me sad. I still do that Star, but… I miss you!” I sobbed again, my shoulders heaving. How could life move on when you loose part of your own soul?
“Linda, come inside. You’ll catch your death,” a warm voice said from behind. I turned, my arms still holding my dear horse. “Come on sweetie, I have some dry clothes for you.”
Slowly I stood, looking at the lonely grave. I knew I needed to warm up, and I knew there would be hot soup and hot chocolate waiting for me. What I didn’t know was how I could ever heal my heart. There’d be other horses, there always were on this cattle farm. Horses were what kept the cattle in line. My parents bred horses for shows, or trail rides that people came here and paid to go on, sometimes the fair, all kinds of things. There’d always be a horse. But none would replace Star. How could they? I walked away from the grave, leaving my friend to freeze. I wished I had thought to bring a blanket. Mom veered away from the path to the house and led me to the barn.
I slowly walked beside her, enjoying her warmth. “I know your heart is hurting Linda. It’s only been three months. But I have something that may cheer you up.”
I was looking at her, a dull and blank expression in my eyes. No light, no laughter, no joy. Only sorrow. She led me to a stall that I knew all too well. Penny lived there. I watched mom open the door, uninterested in the mare. She was a good trail horse, but why would I want to see her?
I peeked in and gasped. My eyes danced for the first time.
“She’s all yours,” Mom said, stepping away.
I looked at her. She was perfect.
Her eyes were soft and creamy, her ears fuzzy, her mane short and silky, her face full of mischief and fun. I ran to her, wrapped my hands around her nose, and looked into her eyes. “You have Star’s Spirit,” I whispered.
The foal lifted her chin and looked into my eyes. She was telling me things. I leaned close and whispered in her ear. “Star sent you, didn’t she? She gave you part of her love, part of her personality, part of her own soul. So we could be together. She sent you to help heal me, didn’t she?” I whipped away my tears of pain so they could be replaced by the new tears that I felt pricking my eyes. Tears of joy.
No horse would ever replace Star, but this fuzzy little thing would certainly fill up part of the hole in my heart. She loved me already, even without any time spent together.
I wrapped my arms around her neck and closed my eyes. A foal! My foal…
Champion story. I can relate to this heartfelt tale. I had a Golden Retriever for a friend even before i was born. His fuzzy face was one of the first that i saw in this world. My mum said he was always gentle with me when i was a little girl; but i wasnt always. =0) We played in the snow in the winters and when i bent down to pick up a snowball he would run up and bowel me into the snow. Sometimes he would escape our big wooden fenced in backyard and make a getaway to the woods.. brining back fishheads, geese, gophers, trying to be the huntin dog he was bred to be. I still remember his exaserpated face when dad took the goose from him and buried it in woods cause it wasnt hunting season.. A couple years ago my Samson died of old age. he couldn’t walk at all hardly and he had a pretty bad tumor on his face. I remember it well, i came home from school that day running up the drive. I came in the door and there was Sam laying on some blankets on the floor.
my mom said “Im sorry HF, He just won’t get up.” she was crying as well and i went down to lay on the blanket beside him. He looked down on me with his big brown eyes and lifted his paw and put it on my sholder. You might not believe me when i say this happened but i know it to be true. I miss that dog, and i’ll never forget him as long as i live.
your story touched me vi
~HF
It’s so sweet! I don’t know how you do it, but in all of your stories you really make me feel what the main character’s feeling. You can really understand her love of Star and how she misses her. Keep up the good work!
That is such a heart wrenching story, and I loved it! The emotion she felt, I felt! Keep it up!
HF……words cann’t describe how sad you must have been. Sam sounds like an amazing friend. Sadie, my new pup, she is always in trouble but she cheers me up when I am feeling bad. Sure she bites me and scratches me when she wants to play (which is all the time) but she also rests in my lap and listens to me tell her about anything and everything. And she’ll do anything for treats.
Animals are a part of humans and humans….well we like to think that we are a part of animals. Really animals don’t need us for survival but they are loyal because of their love for us.
Champion story! I absolutely love your writing and look for more in the future. I also can relate to your loss; my first horse, a regular-sized black mare named Caught. She was amazing, and she was a dream to ride. I shared all my secrets with her. But one day, as she was giving birth to her foal — who is now TITIAN! — she died in labor. I cried for weeks, but when i went out to see the foal for the first time since Caught died, i saw that he had Caught’s spirit in him. He was graceful just like her, and later when i rode him i realized that he had the same smooth gait.
Even though death is sad, we still need to celebrate the great things in life — like the birth of a new foal.
Champion blog, Vi! Hope to see more in the future!
Wild’n'Free Im sorry to hear about what happened to your first horse but im jovial to know that Titan is happy and healthy a literal breathing piece of your beloved Caught.
*by the way i like how your using Champion to… i think im overusing the term abit though. I just cant help myself lol
Vi- your stories seem to touch a little bit of everyone in life. =0)
~HF
every author wants to hear those words, HF
loved it! it was sad though. i can sort of relate. i found a litter of kittens abandoned one time, and they were only about 5 days old. they were all frozen except for 2. i brought them inside and rubbed them with towels and hairdried them. we named them buttons and dove, and bottle fed them 4 times a day. sometimes i would go to school and find crusts of milk on my clothes from feeding them in the morning. their mewing would wake us up at night, and we used to sneak them into our beds, even though they were supposed to stay in the laundry. buttons got sick and died, and we were heartbroken. however, dove soon stole our hearts, and all of our attention. she would jump over the barriars we set up to block the steps and doors, and we would find her running through the halls. at supper the one time, i felt something under the table, and i looked down to see dove. my mom though, had enough of her antics, and dove was out of the house a week before christmas. i visited her every morning, and she had a unique way of putting her front legs around my neck and “hugging” me, and she would nuzzel me and curl up with me when i was sad and lonely. this spring she surprised us with four adorable, lovelable, affectionate kittens. Maxxy, Jasper, Dixie, and Gabe. Yesterday, when i was riding my horse, i found Dove dead in the meadow. I was so sad, i cried for hours. she was only 9 months old. this time i wont be rescueing two frozen kittens from the cold, and bringing them inside, but i will be busy babying my four 3 week old kittens. Every time i look at them i see dove in their faces. its like you said wild’n free. death is sad, but we need to celebrate new life.
Oh Violet, that sent tears to my eyes. You are an amazing author. Amazing. I can’t discribe it. Words just can’t discribe how amazing of an author you are!
Beautiful. It was so sad as you expressed the characters emotions so well! I’m guessing that you’ll be one of the winners for the Fiction comp! *smile*
~Diana
Your words touch my heart gals! Lana, Dove sounded like a real charter! My puppy Sadie is wild and dose the funniest things. Like sneezing toothpaste on me when I am battling her to brush her teeth.
Western Mare, it isn’t always easy to get others to feel the emotion your charter is feeling. You have to describe every little prick of pain, every thought, the feeling of every limb on thier body. It can be challenging sometimes but If I imagen I am the one standing out in the snow I can just picture how cold it would be. It would be soo cold kneeling in the snow that it would sting, almost burn my thys. But my heart would be so heavy that the pain in my legs would vanish and be replaced by my inner pain. Word of advice to EVERYONE; picture yourself in your charter’s position and it will better help you describe emotions.
Diana, my hope is to be one of the winners but there are SO MANY amazing taltnes here that I doubt I’ll come close! Everyone has worked so hard and I am sure improved so much that we can only cross our fingers that the judges chose us. I am sure that whoever wins I will be happy for because they would have tried thier best adn I know we all did our best.
yeah, she definatley is one of the winners. vi, you are amazing. i wish i could write like you.
Very touching.
will there be a part 2 to this??? it was an awesome story Vi. it inspired me to write one…
Pal, I am not sure what the future holds for my charters. There are so many other stories I am working on telling right now. Stories about old charters and new ones. If I decide to make a second to this it will hopefully be a bit longer and with less deep and depressing emotions. Who knows?
well im simply amazed! its a great story! cant wait till you finish your other stories!
thats something diferent, good idea with the sad that goes first in the story(be cause the niceness comes later)it usualy makes the reader feel warm like a little kiten.
Violet Inkpen- Wow. When you were describing the way she felt about losing Star I started to tear up. It was that good. Great job, you are a fabulous writer and I hope you never give up on it!
I had a cat named Whiskers once. I was a little kid, and she was my best friend. She was aged with gray hairs when my older sister found her (But I claimed my dear Whiskers as my own). My sister named her Whiskers, and Whiskers and I grew an un-believable bond from love. She trusted me, and I trusted her. We used to have an old rusty bench in our front yard, and always, every day Whiskers and I would climb up there, sometimes I would read. And other times I would just sit there with Whiskers as we enjoyed each others company. Sometimes she wasn’t so gentle with me, and she would claw my hand as I tried in vain to touch her stomach, but I soon learned that was not her favorite spot to be petted. We always used to have leaves in the bottom edges of our sidewalks. And once, I buried Whiskers in them, that’s my second memory with her. In the summer, I would get a spray bottle and lightly spray her black coat, (It didn’t occur to me then that usually cats will put up a fuss when sprayed with water) but my Whiskers tolerated all my silly antics towards her. When I needed to go inside, I repeated the word stay, or sit to Whiskers, and amazingly, she waited patiently for me to come back out. During the time of when Whiskers was still with us, I had been took a grammar class, and I would brag to a girl who sat across from me that my cat Whiskers knew how to sit and stay. And I still remember faintly one of the last times I bragged to her.
Because Whiskers had died.
It had been a Friday night, we had just gotten back from cleaning some offices and it was late. I was asking someone to iron on this iron-on sticker I had gotten in a Pop-tart’s box when my mom called me. I’m not sure if she had discovered Whiskers’ body in the road, or she has witnessed it happening, but I just know she had said a car had gone to fast and had taken the life of my beloved best feline friend. She said she had put her body in a bag. After I found out the news, my house that had once been bustling with talk a moment ago was now silent in respect for my grief. I had written my feelings about Whiskers’ death and how I played with her, and the time she died along with the date on a small paper, and stuck it in my diary. Then, years later, I had been holding that precious paper that held the last of my memories with my first best friend in my hand while I was walking at my sisters soccer game, when I discovered later on that day that it was no longer in my possession. I begged my mom to allow me to search for a paper I dropped. I never found it though. I was devastated. That had held the time and date when I lost my best friend. And I knew I would never find it.
That was the first time I had ever had my heart broken.
i love this story! it made me cry 3 times! you are a real eqin auther, i tell you.
It is I, girls, that is touched by all your comments. I write stories to share the great love of horses with you all. But it is YOU who dose a great deed for me by reading and appreciating them. I cann’t tell you how thankful I am to have you all as friends! I sometimes have a hard day with my brothers, school, or just life but comming hear, reading stroies, writing stories, and sharing comments always, ALWAYS, makes me smile!