A Christmas miracle - it must have been one!

I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s not a Santa, but after Christmas ‘06, I still believe in miracles.

This story starts in a pasture, with a gloriously gentle and beautiful horse. December 23rd presented me with a rare moment, between countertops covered with rising butter horns and closets full of unwrapped gifts, to get out and see my beloved horse.

With Christmas treats stuffed in my pockets, in the form of delectable carrots and apples, I headed out to her home at a nearby farm. Exiting my car in a hurry, I gave the farm dogs a particularly thorough Christmas greeting, gathered up a halter and headed out to the snow-encrusted field.

Catching my trusty 21-year-old mare easily and talking to her all the way back to the barn, I knew this time with her would grant me those rare moments I’ve come to know as ‘grace.’ When asked if I go to church, I sometimes say, ‘no, I ride my horse.’

Those of you who have never sat atop a lifelong friend, with the Prairie sun setting in colours of magenta, mauve and azure, know not of what I speak. And it is those folks who can only stare at me dumbfounded when I compare riding an equine mammal to standing before a priest and altar. But, for those of you who share the same penchant for the sweet smell of horse sweat and the rare connection with a gentle soul that has been with you since she was a rambunctious little filly, you know exactly what I mean.

So out we set, Beauty and I, off to a place that lifts the soul, soothes the heart and quiets the dizzying voices that pull one in various directions. In this diamond-studded field, bordered by cattail encrusted sloughs, it is hard to believe that God does not exist, alongside Allah, Mother Earth, Buddha and Jesus, and any and all other forms that are believed to be endowed with other-worldy powers.

So it was, that my mind was not grounded to reality until I had returned my dear friend to her home pasture, stored the saddle away in the barn and headed back to my car. Reaching in my pocket for the keys, the gut-wrenching realization that my keys were not there hit me like I had just been bucked violently off a wild bronco.

I looked out over the pasture and fields from whence I had come, and knew it would be physically impossible to find my keys in this multi-mile expanse now lit by an ever-shrinking and descending wedge of the setting sun.

And, what’s more, this was our one and only set of keys. No backup just in case an absent-minded driver should leave them in the deep snow, amongst hay and horse turds, in the vast, vast expanse of a darkening Prairie landscape.

If there was time, I would have cried. But with a sliver of light at my disposal, I decided to start my futile search in the pasture where five horses had since trodden up a storm. As I searched, I swore a little … and prayed for a Christmas miracle. Not typically a set of actions that one would group together, but both were the result of being at the end of a fraying rope.

As I walked hopelessly up and down, up and down and up and down the pasture for a full 30 minutes (my toes and finger tips frozen by now) I had visions of a car-less Christmas, a housebound holiday and a set of keys so far beneath the snow they would not surface until spring (2027).

But just as I was about to abandon my impossible mission (not to be confused with the glamorous Mission Impossible), with the horses watching me inquisitively, I spotted them there in the snow. They looked curiously like the hundreds of piles of horse puckies I had checked out for the last 30 minutes, but they were clearly my precious keys.

I grabbed them, dropped to my knees, said a little prayer and screamed wildly out to my horse friends, ‘Yahoo - I found them, I found them.’

So, here’s to Christmas miracles, as small as they may be. I believe, I believe ….

Christalee Froese welcomes comments at lcfroese@ sasktel.net