February 23, 2014 – Dear Mr. McDonald,
I’ll try to make this as brief as possible. I mainly just wanted to say thank you. On Saturday, Feb. 22, I had was at the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show. I have been going to that show as well as a few others as often as possible. On this specific day, I was in the group of people that were watching you as you presented some of your horses in front of the barn. As you talked about the different horses and presented each one to the audience, you or someone else would walk the horse around and provide and up close and more personal look at the horse. At one specific time you were walking around a mare and you just happened to stop in front of me for an all to brief moment and I had the chance to be up close and personal with the horse. It was a moment that I shall hold on to for some time to come.
As a younger adult horses were a major part of my life. I was lucky enough to always have a horse available to me as either a family horse or a friends horse. HOURS of riding, grooming, care, were spent with a horse. The last of family horses has long past. We turned out the last horse Dad had years ago, to live out his days on the range. That was pretty much the last of the time that I was with a horse without a fence or stable between myself and the horse. I go to the Arabian Horse Show specifically to be as close as possible to the horses. I so miss the smell of the horse, the leather, the feed, and the sounds. The memories of those early mornings of feeding and hearing the horses eating and snorting are always with me.
In those few brief moments that you stood beside me, and the horse nuzzled up against me, I was totally in heaven again. Perhaps that all sounds rather silly if nothing less than dramatic, but I wanted to thank you for those moments. Sometimes I realize that a smile or a hello to a stranger is something that can bring a bit of happiness to both of us. We often do things that seem meaningless or just a part of everyday life to us, but is perhaps so important to someone else. It truly is the smallest things in life that are so much more meaningful.
Anyway, my point is this. You gave me something that I have missed for such a long time. As meaningless or as every day, as it may have seemed to you, it meant the world to me. Again, THANK YOU.
Dennis
