I love animals. But I didn’t grow up with them. I was raised in Palestine, not far from Jerusalem, in a hot, dry land, and I came to the United States when I was eighteen to be with my husband, Steve. Before that, Steve had moved to the States as a single man, then moved back to Palestine to find a wife. I fell in love with him the first time I saw him. I told all my girlfriends that he was the man I wanted to marry.
Happily, we did marry. Steve moved back to the States in Michigan, and I followed six months later. The terrain and the climate in Michigan were very different for us after Palestine. But we both came to love the four seasons, which are especially enjoyable in this state. And we came to enjoy animals in our life.
After we lived in the Detroit area for a time, we bought forty acres of a former cattle ranch. We moved to the country where we raised some Angus beef and a few horses, one or two at a time. We bought and ran a family-style restaurant in a town nearby, and we sometimes used our own beef for the meat choices. I was having my children during these years, and some of the kids and I learned to ride our horses, Western style. I loved every minute of it—both raising my eight children and riding the horses.
We bought Cosmo from a friend. Cosmo was a purebred Arabian stallion, all white except for a small gray mark on his nose. He was tall, beautiful, and majestic. I fell in love with him right away, and the wonderful thing was that this gorgeous animal loved me back. He was so happy when I was with him. Cosmo’s whole demeanor would brighten when I approached. He would make nickering and snorting noises in happiness. He would tuck his head under my arm, as calm as anything. I rode him a lot, and he was always gentle, always kind.
Until a man tried to ride him, that is. Cosmo didn’t like men, and we never understood why. He tried rubbing male riders off with the fence. Sometimes he even threw them off. One of my sons received a minor injury from Cosmo trying to dislodge him. This horse simply did not want a male to ride his back. Since four of my children were male—not to mention my husband—this was a problem. They rode Cosmo, but it was always a struggle.
But I certainly didn’t have that problem. Cosmo seemed to like me riding him as much as I liked riding him. For me, having Cosmo was like having another baby, the way he would want to cuddle up against me, letting me cradle his mighty head. He was my pet, and I so enjoyed him. I can never forget how rewarding it felt to have a creature that majestic nuzzled under my arm.
But Cosmo was a complicated horse.
One night in a cold December, my nineteen-year-old son, Tariq, decided to take a moonlit ride on Cosmo. There was lots of snow and a full moon—perfect for a quiet ride. Around midnight, everyone was in bed except Tariq and me. I was doing house chores as I heard him leave the house for the barn.
An hour later, I heard a knock at the back door. I assumed it was Tariq, but it was a neighbor. She had been driving home from her night shift job when she saw what appeared like an apparition in the snow in front of my house. But it was no apparition. It was my big, white Cosmo with Tariq atop him. Together, they stood in the middle of the road. Simply standing, not moving.
The neighbor pulled up and put her window down. Tariq told her that once he and Cosmo got on the road, the horse stopped walking and decided not to move. They had been standing still in subzero weather for an hour now. No matter what Tariq tried, our strong-willed stallion would not move. Tariq said later that he thought the horse might try to buck him off. That was also part of Cosmo’s personality. But fortunately, that didn’t happen; Cosmo just planted himself and stood.
Our house had a quarter-mile driveway, so shouting could not alert me. Tariq could only hope someone would drive up and see them but not collide with them. My son knew he couldn’t leave Cosmo out there on the road, so he simply waited on this freezing night. We were so grateful the neighbor came along and stopped.
I bundled up with coat and boots and gloves. At the barn, I grabbed some sweet feed with molasses and headed down the long driveway. There was a tall willow tree at the end of the drive leading onto the road, and just beyond that was where Cosmo chose to stop in the road. He was not leaving home.
Once Cosmo saw me, as usual, his demeanor changed. He was always sweet and affectionate with me, and even in this odd circumstance, he immediately snuggled under my arm. I talked to him and fussed over him and gave him some feed. Then I took his harness and walked him back to the barn with no problem whatsoever.
It was time for a family discussion about this horse. We’d had Cosmo for two years, but it was clear he was an unsafe horse for everyone but me. We determined we should find him another home. Oh, I was sad to see my handsome friend go. I could only hope he would have a happy life at his next home.
A couple of years after Cosmo was rehomed, I was at the restaurant. A family was seated around a large round table, and they called me over. “We’re the people who bought Cosmo,” they said. I learned that, for whatever reason, he didn’t have the problems with males that we had. I was so pleased to meet them and to hear them say Cosmo was a fine horse for them. He was content, they said. I felt very good about that.
Since then, my husband has passed on, and all my children have moved on to careers and marriage. I have a cat but no more horses. I enjoy other animals, though. The wildlife come to my backyard—deer, geese, sandhill cranes. A gray heron visits me every day. When the moon rises over my pond, I take pictures of it. I can’t get enough.
And in the winter out there, in my mind’s eye, I see my gorgeous stallion Cosmo in a full moon, standing like an elegant statue in the snow.