> JP :>    Last Sunday (the 15th of June) was the 1 year
 > JP :>anniversary of "Baby" passing away.  I was a
 > basket case
 > Oh, dear.  I hate those anniversaries!  May 1 is a bad
 > day for me too...but the time seems to fly by for some
 > reason.....I still have days when I miss Thistle so
 > much I could cry (actually, I do).  There's a spot
    Glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way. There seems to be a 
huge hole in my chest (only way I know how to describe how I feel sometimes).
 > near the trails we used to ride on that I pass every
 > time I go to the grain store, and I think of her every
 > time.  I really miss that "together" feeling we always
 > had on the trail...not so much in the show ring,
 > though (g).  Just as for you, there'll never be
 > another "Baby", for me, there'll never be another
 > Thistle.  Guess we get one in a lifetime, Jean.
 > Doesn't mean I don't love Fiddle and Shiloh, it's just
 > not the same.
    Very true -- not that I don't love X, PATTI, SHAM (the Queen ) or 
little Tuffy ..... I DO love them.  It's just not the same as I felt with 
"Baby".
 > But I do love the memories, and the pictures sure do
 > help.  My favorite of her is with other family photos
 > on a table in my living room.  I love to look at it
 > whenever I go by it.  It's of her standing in the
 > field the day we brought her here.  She's in a patch
 > of black-=eyed Susans and is walking away from the
 > camera with her head turned back to look.  I kinda
 > think of it as the way she left us...walking through
 > flowers looking back to say "bye". Wierd, huh?
    What a wonderful pic to have, Meg ..... she's waiting for you to join her 
someday as I know "Baby" is waiting for me.
    I found the most wonderful pic of me and "Baby" ..... I had it enlarged 
and it now hangs in my living room.  Like you, I pass it everytime I enter 
the living room/kitchen. My eyes are drawn to it almost automatically.
    The pic is of us -- me standing at her head (kinda' on her left side) and 
her head is sort of "wrapped around" me. I'm holding a red ribbon ..... we 
had either been in an open Mare's Halter Class or a Grooming and Conditioning 
Class. "Baby"s ears are perked forward and she looks sooooooo beautiful!!  I 
was so lucky to have found the pic -- and then I found the negative (and the 
negative had a 1993 date on it).
    Thanks for your message back, Meg ... I know you understand how I feel 
..... we WILL be united with our wonderful horses someday -- I really believe 
that!
---
---------------