My friend David passed away a few weeks ago. My emotions have run the gamut and I'm pretty sure I'm back to where I started: Feeling guilty that I didn't visit more. I didn't talk to him more. I had meant to get his full life's story, write it down, tell the world what he'd been through. His life was no less than extraordinary, and almost a complete mystery to me.
His life was so so different from mine, and his experiences were so far from anything I could ever grasp. Even in concept, it's hard. He was born in a small agrarian village in what is now Poland. When he was born, his village was technically in Czechoslovakia, but the river rerouted and then their village was in Poland. How crazy is that? He used to tell me wonderful, amazing stories about his favorite horse, who's name I never got, who was, according to David, the most intelligent horse who ever lived. He was an old, retired plow horse, who's job was to get water for the family from a cistern located down a hill. David, as a boy, would hook a cart up to the horse, and in the cart were buckets. He'd say to the horse (in Polish), "Go get the water", and the horse obeyed. On his own, the horse would pull the cart down the hill and maneuver the cart under the village's cistern. The cart triggered a latch that opened a release valve and the water would flow from the cistern, filling the buckets. When the water started spilling over the sides, the horse knew the buckets were full, and he'd carefully maneuver the cart back up the hill, delivering the water to his family.
Who knows how many times David had told this story, or how many times it had been revised over the years. Our memories have a way of editing themselves as time passes. Who knows if this story was even true? What I do know is the love and the pure joy this horse gave David, and continued to give him through memories, throughout David's 85 years of life. I'm sure it was this memory that helped David through the most horrific time of his life: the Holocaust.
When David was 13, his entire village, including his family, were rounded up and taken from their homes. Everything was confiscated, including David's beloved horse. His family ended up in the first concentration camp in Warsaw, known as "The Ghetto". David was sent to an orphanage along with a girl from his village. At the age of 14, David "aged out" of the orphanage and was sent to a labor camp in Siberia. When the war ended and he was rescued from what I'm sure were deplorable conditions, David was sent to a "rehabilitation" camp in France, where he taught himself to speak French (it was to be the fourth of the five languages he'd learn to speak). He eventually emigrated to Canada, then made his way to Baltimore. He met and married his wife, they had two daughters, and eventually two grandchildren.
That's the censored version of his life. That's the story he told, or, more specifically, that's the story he was able to tell. The truth, which I learned from our mutual friend, was that his entire village was murdered. His last memories of his entire family were watching them being taken away. He and the little girl who were sent to the orphanage were the only survivors of his village. I can't even imagine what that was like for David, the child, and David the 85 year old. I'm sure those are memories, and emotions, that one can never reconcile.
When I met David, my horse, Hallie, had just had surgery and needed a place to retire. I was looking for a quiet home with plenty of green grass and other horse companions. My friend Dawn recommended to David that he let me bring Hallie to his farm. He was reluctant but he agreed to meet Hallie first, before deciding. He visited Hallie a few weeks after she'd had her surgery, she was stitched and swollen and partially bandaged, I'm sure she looked the worse for wear. David immediately agreed. He said, to Dawn, "This horse needs to live on my farm." And so she did. He took her in and he loved her and he spoiled her, and I loved him for that.
I only knew David for 5 years, and I can't say that I knew him well. I knew what he allowed me to know and given the circumstances, I'm sure even that was difficult for him. He was a closed man, he didn't talk much about himself. If I asked how he was doing, he'd respond with, "oh, you know..." and then he'd change the subject. I've heard he was tough on his employees, he was demanding, and he expected perfection from his children. He would accept no excuses. I, though, had the honor and the pleasure of knowing him not as an employee, or as his child, but as his friend. To me, he was honest, he was sincere, and he was so, so compassionate. When he told me the story of his childhood horse, he cried. That horse represented, for him, everything in his life that was taken. His home. His family. His childhood and his innocence. But, I'll add, they did not take his compassion. For all the unimaginable, tragic and absolutely horrific things he experienced, he never, ever lost his compassion.
The night that David passed away, our friend Dawn was with him. She had stopped in to have dinner with him. She said David seemed sullen, it was as if David knew it was his last evening on Earth. He didn't eat much dinner, and he asked to be helped into his chair by the window. He told Dawn he just needed to see his horses. He sat there for a while, watching the horses, then he asked Dawn to help him into his bed. She helped him upstairs and got him settled in bed, and David quietly, peacefully passed away.
Even in his last hours, "his" horses meant the world to him. I have no doubt as he was watching Jane, Lily, Bravo, Huey and Hallie, with Ringo the cat on his lap and Bridget the dog at his side, he was remembering his childhood, with nothing but compassion in his heart.
I'll miss you, David.
