Little Black Book

The Little Black Book and $20,000

It was a warm summer day and all the windows were open in the house. This house was a special place to Mary, a young girl of 11. Her grandmother had built the house. Here in this house Mary spent most of her growing years. The house was set on a ranch that her grandmother and her mother owned outright. Mary’s mother was a veterinarian and her father was a cowboy. Her mother and father also lived on the ranch, in house just about a mile away from Nan’s house. Nan is what Mary liked to call her grandmother.

Nan had passed away a week ago and this Saturday was her funeral. Nan’s old time yellow roses were in full bloom. To see them in the yard only made Mary feel even more alone. A horrible, heavy feeling wrapped around the young girl’s heart. It felt like there was a large heavy rock just sitting on her chest. No matter what Mary did she couldn’t get rid of it.

Mary went to her Nan’s bedroom, her eyes full of tears that she could no longer hold back. Everyone was outside in the yard talking, so no one could see her. The missing of Nan was terrible. She laid down on Nan’s bed and she could smell her perfume it was like flowers and horses and fresh air. She reached to grab a pillow and bury her face in it and then she felt something. It was a book, a little black note book, quite thick. Mary sat up and wiped away the tears on her face. The book opened to towards the end her name was written inside and there were dates and several entries. She began to read:

April 2th,

Today is my mother’s birthday and today is the day my granddaughter was born 11 years ago. My daughter named her after my mother and the tradition of horsewomen is now kept alive in my granddaughter. For she loves the horses as much as we do. She has my mother’s black hair and green eyes. My heart is happy.

April 15th

The granddaughter of my favorite horse foaled her first foal today. The filly’s color is quite unusual. It is a dark smoke color not quite black but not quite buckskin either. I think it will be quite different from any of the other colts. She is the product of the stud horses that I raised when we first started the ranch. Oh, how happy I am. Mary, my granddaughter was so excited and she even got to touch the filly’s soft hide. I will never forget the feel of a new born colt after it is all clean and dry and fluffy. There is nothing softer not even velvet.

April 17th

What a strange couple of days. My memories of times past keep coming back so real to me I think I am dreaming. I must write them down. As the older I get sometimes I forget things and Mary is always asking me to tell her stories of what it was like when I grew up or how we got the ranch. Speaking of how we got the ranch I found a copy of the check for $20,000 that I received when Mary’s mother was a little girl. My daughter Rose was about the same age as Mary when the miracle of the $20,000 check came. Those first 11 years growing up were hard years. The check for $20,000 was such a blessing. It was the beginning of a better life.

The check had come as part of inheritance from my mother’s best friend, Diana, who lived up in Alaska. Mama’s friend owned ground with deposits of oil and gold. They were very wealthy. Even with their 3 children, when Dianna passed away there still was a considerable sum that had went to me since both my mother and father had already passed away. The $20,000 was instant money. The more substantial amount was in company stock that took almost a year to cash in. But it had been enough to purchase the ranch with money left over.

It was the winter after Scott, my husband divorced me, that a man in a business suite came to my door to deliver: a pile of paperwork along with, the check, certificates of stock and there was a little black. In it, Diana had written on inside,

“Write down the things that are worth more than money for the memories of times spent with the people you love are more precious than all the money in the world.”

April 19th

For some reason I keep being reminded of the past. Maybe it’s’ because my granddaughter is the same age that my daughter was when we lost our home, before the money came to us. That year my husband Scott and I divorced, he left me, for a younger version of myself. I was just healing from my 4th back surgery. I was over-weight and I could barely walk. He decided that I was too much trouble. He didn’t want to pay for the house we lived in, or help with my medical bills. He didn’t even really want to spend time with our daughter Rose. He wanted to play and drink whiskey. He moved far away and we didn’t hear from him for a long time. It was a good thing that he left. I cried have never cried so much in my life.

The year Scott was gone was so hard. At first, I had a small part time job, and he given me 6 months child support up front but it didn’t last long and he never paid anything after that. We lived on credit cards and handouts from family and friends. We had to go to the local food bank to get food. I finally got healed up enough from my surgeries that I could walk and stand so I got a second job. But it wasn’t enough to keep the house. It took almost a whole year but the bank foreclosed and we had to leave. We had to give away most of our things. We kept our clothes, towels, essentials and my best friend Anne, let Rose and I stay in her spare bedroom.

The only thing I would not give up was our 3 horses. They were all mares. The sweet bay was my daughter’s. The dun was older, the buckskin was just a colt. The buckskin was the last of my family’s bloodlines. The bloodlines came from my mother’s mares and my Uncle Jack’s stud horse. Horses were our hopes and dreams. We rode them, brushed them, loved them deeply. Between my daughter and my horses, I was able to work my two jobs and keep hoping that someday things would get better.

May 1st

How I love the month of May it is truly the best. The weather is not too hot or cold. We still might get a little rain, but it was okay. The lilacs are in bloom. The grass in the meadow is starting to get tall. The cows and calves are turned out to pasture. The green hill sides are covered in patches of yellow and purple as all the wild flowers are blooming. The thought of last winter is far away and everything is full of hope for the summer.

Again, I am reminded of the first house Rose and I had. The one Scott and I had bought. The one that we lost and our last summer there. Even though I spent many a sleepless night worrying about how I was going to pay the bills, hoping I would get better so I could work, there were a few good times to be had.

We still had a 10 head of cows that hadn’t sold yet and they were on the ground that we leased which bordered our home. I had a beautiful yard, quite large with tall elm trees and old-time yellow roses. The roses reminded me of how my first boyfriend proposed to me. He had made a ring with a rose. With the stem of a yellow rose, he wrapped it around my finger and kept the flower on the top of my hand. He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. We were way too young and we never got married. But I will never forget my first proposal. I never forgot him either. Even though we both married someone else and he moved away.

May 3rd

“Lilacs, roses and horses have best smell in the world,” my granddaughter Mary told me today. I laughed a bit when I heard the words from her sweet little voice. For I too felt the same way. She asked me today, “How did Mama learn to ride? How did you learn to ride?” The question led me to tell of the summer Hope and I spent by ourselves taking care of the lease cattle. My daughter learned how to go look for lost cows. How to gather and drive them home. How to fix fence and remember to close pasture gate.

That summer when our work was done, we would ride in the evening and work cows in the round pen. Rose also liked to barrel race. She would warm up her mare riding large circles around the arena and then she would practice her pattern.

“See Mama how fast I went!” She would say. Her eyes were shining and her smile was priceless. I will never forget those evenings in the last golden sunlight of the day and coolness of a summer evening coming on. We would sit and watch a big yellow moon rise over the mountains. Our horses were happy and we were happy. If only I could make time stand still.

Looking back at that summer with no money there were still so many good things about it, even though times were hard. It was good in fact that I was with my daughter and I got to show her things that were almost forgotten in our fast-paced world of technology. I did it as a single mom and I was able to take care of my daughter. I found my strength in words of encouragement from family and friends.

The money I inherited was such a blessing, I was able to build my ranch. I was able to send Rose to college so that she could have a chance to become a veterinarian and be financially independent. Rose also found a true soul mate and they had my granddaughter. This was truly the most wonderful gift of all. My life is complete and I am happy. I have a little girl whom asks me questions about horses and she wants me to tell her stories of the old days…

Mary closed the little black book. There were no other entries. It was the last time Nan had written anything. But the book was filled with so many other stories as Mary skimmed the pages. Stories of how Nan built the ranch, the struggles and wins of the day. There were also stories of her great grandmother and grandfather and their parents. How they came to settle the valley that she lived in. There were stories of amazing dogs and beautiful horses. And then in that moment Mary didn’t feel so alone. Having the little black book was like have Nan still alive. The stories that Nan told gave Mary the hope and strength to not miss her so much.

Mary though to herself, “If Nan could do all those things, crippled and without a partner in life, then I can get thru this too."