July 2nd

Yesterday would have been my brother's 61st birthday. He died in 2000 and I still miss him. I remember the morning he died I was foxhunting and I was distracted thinking about him. I was alone, under the power lines , waiting to catch an errant puppy that I could hear yipping on a deer. It was warm and Elvis, my QH hunter was relaxed and dozing, hip cocked, as we quietly waited for the puppy to exit the woods. I was mourning the eminent death of my brother from lung cancer and without really paying attention, as the puppy got in range I raised my pistol ( loaded with rat shot used to scare deer-chasing puppies) and I fired. Well, Elvis exploded like a demon-possessed bronco and started to buck so hard I thought I was going to die. There were rocks all around and I was too scared to fall off because he was getting such height in his bucks I was sure I'd break my neck. Luckily for me, a friend was coming in early and came up the hill and saw Elvis going berserk. She rode up to him and he calmed and slowly stopped bucking. In the initial explosion of horse, Elvis' neck had slammed into my trigger hand and three fingers were dislocated, one still looped through the pistol trigger. They were hanging at right angles to my hand and not functioning. Without thinking I grabbed them in my mouth and pulled them straight, snapping them back into joint sockets. It was ugly. Sabine, my friend was astounded and just stared at me. I was so happy to still be alive on that horse, I could not stop thanking her. After we had ridden in and I finally dismounted (without the puppy who was so scared by the whole thing he did not come in for hours) I saw blood on Elvis' ear and realized I had probably grazed his ear with a rat-shot pellet. He had been happily dozing in the sun and I had apparently shot him! He was fine but I heard shortly thereafter that my brother had lost his fight with cancer. The pain in my fingers and hand that morning was a physical manifestation of the pain in my heart. He has been gone 10 years and it still hurts and my fingers are still twisted and ache sometimes. Happy Birthday Ian.