The Old Man and the Barn.

Everything must come to an end at some point. Even the places you know and love; and the relationships with the people you see everyday.

This barn is the only place I know. I was born here. I grew up here. Its walls are my safe haven. It protects us from the weather, keeps us shaded from the sun, and gives us a place to sleep at night. You can see little mice and raccoons in here sometimes, along with the goats that like to sleep in front of the stalls. It was peaceful.

The once bright red paint is now faded and chipped. Cob webs tangled up in the rafters and supports around the interior. The wood on the outside is worn and has began to rot. The old man tried so hard to keep this place looking nice. He did a good job when he was younger, but now as his body began to age and fail, he could no longer keep up with the work.

He still brought us hay and feed. Stacking the flakes of hay in the corner of the stalls where our hay racks were. The wooden doors on the outside were closed to keep the rain and snow out; the brackets that held them on were rusted and needed replacing. But the frail old man could no longer hold up the wood to fix them by himself.

The old woman that was with him stopped coming out to the barn. She'd bring carrots and apples, sometimes a bag of horse treats for us. Every morning she'd go into the tack room and grab a brush to take care of us. Now the mornings are lonely without her. The old man wasn't as energetic or happy when she stopped coming. There's only so much we can do to help him.

He would always say that we kept him company. That the days were less lonely when he was with us in the barn. When he gave us our feed, he'd give us a quick brush and tell us that he loved us, that we were the reason he was still here. He said how much he missed her. How his children were in another state. And that the neighbor was really the only one to come visit when he could, but he was his age too.

When he turned us out in the pasture by the barn, we would watch him try to keep the weed downs that grew alongside the walls. He would do his best to try and fix the paddock runs that connected to the stalls. If he wasn't tending to those, he was out on his tractor trying to keep the grass down. But it was too much work for one man, but he never gave up.

But one day, he stopped coming. In place of his morning routine, a firetruck and an ambulance arrived with the old neighbor that would always visit. Myself and the others stood out at the edge of our stall windows to watch the old farm house. The men carried our old man out on a stretcher into the ambulance, but the sirens were shut off as they left.

The neighbor left too. But came back with a horse trailer and pulled up to the old barn. One by one he placed a halter on each of the other three horses and loaded them into the trailer. And then he came to me.

"He really loved you, Tucker."

I know he did. I was his companion. I looked to him for guidance.

"He always wanted a black and white paint. He finally got you."

He had many horses over the years. Some came and went. Some stayed. Some died here. But I was consistent in his life. The neighbor too put me in halter and lead me to the trailer with the others, guiding my beside my pasture mates before he shut the big metal door.

"I made a promise to him that I'd take care of you all after he died. I'm going to keep that promise."

Before we left, he gathered the goats and chickens from the coop and placed them in crates in the bed of his truck. Shortly after we began to move as he drove off down the driveway. I looked back at the old wooden barn, watching it grow smaller and smaller as we left. My whole life was in that barn. My life was with the old man. I never thought I would see the day where that life would end. I felt like I could see my old man and the old woman standing in front of the barn as we finally left the property. He waved with a sad smile. The barn disappearing behind the trees as we turned onto the road. One day we'll all be together again, in that old red barn that I grew up in.