She Came Back

“Grandma used to say that when a mare disappears into the forest, that’s a good thing. The next time you see her, she’ll have a new foal at her side.”

The words barely registered as I picked at my nails and scanned the horse pasture.

It was spring. We had a group of mares ready to foal, but one was missing.

She seemed to have vanished.

My mind raced through every scenario. Trouble foaling. A hole in the fence. A fall. A bear.

Finally, the words spoken broke into the roiling chaos of my thoughts.

“What? Her missing is a good thing?” I asked, each word frosted with skepticism.

“Yes,” my husband said. “A good thing. The mares know what they are doing. She doesn’t need your eyes on her to safely foal.”

Yeah, right!

And yet, the quiet confidence of Grandma’s words resonated. She and her husband pioneered this ranch and carved a life here through hard experience. What they knew, they had earned.

Her words reframed the story I told myself.

The mares did know what they were doing. Each one was an experienced mother who had raised multiple foals.

But still, I worried.

Every morning, I went out to the field to check the mares. To count them. Not because they needed me to, but because I needed to see them. To reassure myself.

That they were okay.

I searched for the missing mare for three days. I walked the meadows, searched the forest, and scanned the sky for crows, because gathering crows sometimes meant something had died.

But the land was quiet, and the peace of the woodlands clashed with my agitated anxiety.

Every morning that I furtively looked for the mare, I also saw birds feeding their young and bees moving from blossom to blossom. They knew, intuitively, what to do. The life of the forest happened whether I was watching or not.

I kept looking, but the land held its peace, and slowly I began to hold mine. I wondered if my worry, disguised as care, had cost me the wonder of what might unfold.

Maybe mystery isn’t a problem to solve, but a marvel to embrace.

When I woke on the fourth morning and looked outside, there she was.

In the open.

In the sun.

With a new foal.

My heart surged, and I hurried outside. I walked up to her with cookies, ran my hands over both mother and baby, and checked them carefully.

She was calm.

The foal was curious.

They were both healthy and wholly unbothered.

A few hours later, they slipped back into the trees.

For another week, I only glimpsed them at a distance — in a far meadow, at the edge of the timber — moving easily, content, on their own terms. Bonding in the way mares and foals do when no one is watching.

When they finally came back to the herd, the young colt — the colour of burnished fire — walked out and joined the others, as if the forest had been where he was supposed to begin.

Grandma knew something I keep relearning. The mare knew the way. She did not need my watching over her to bring new life into the world.

What I cannot see is not always in danger.

Sometimes the unknown is not an invitation to worry.

Sometimes it is an invitation to wonder.

To trust.

To loosen my grip on what was never mine to control.