One of our friends is struggling with depression right now
and that brought to my mind a highly personal and sensitive subject, one RD might
rather forget, but I think it is another example of his creative side and since
it was such a big part of our lives I want to talk about it.
Thank God, after years of struggle, he overcame debilitating
depression and I think he did it in a very creative way. At the risk of
embarrassing RD by telling too much about this time of his life I will describe
some of the ways he tried to come out of that deep hole he was in.
He spoke honestly with our family physician, Dr. Maynard "Mike" DeYoung
at the Family Clinic and the two of them decided on a regimen of
anti-depressant medicines which he took for awhile, but they didn’t help him
and the side effects were not good. In his determination to help RD, Dr.
DeYoung became a personal friend and he and RD went deer hunting together in the Rocky
Mountains, along with a couple of Dr. DeYoung’s friends.
After gentle probing about RD’s spiritual beliefs Dr.
DeYoung invited the two of us to join him and his wife Barbara at First Christian Church
where we came to admire the minister there, Charlie Patchen. Some months later
Dr. DeYoung told us of a Wednesday night church group that met in the basement of
First Christian, and there was talk that people were getting real help from the
ministry of Derin Carmack, former principal of Wellington Junior High, also lay
minister. We met new, interesting people there; Loren and Sheila Crabtree became good friends and Sheila taught us both about positive affirmations, a confidence-building technique that helped.
RD also starting going to a chiropractor in town, Ole
Lipiec, who treated his lower back pain using the Palmer Method of chiropractic,
a gentle technique of adjustment. Soon many of our friends availed themselves
of Ole Lipiec’s healing touch and we still talk of him today. He, too, became
friends with RD and tried his best to heal the whole person. Ole and his wife, Kathy, moved to Maryville, Missouri, or we would still be going to him.
But the depression lingered, sometimes exacerbated by life
events, but always present. After years of struggle RD finally consented to see
a psychiatrist for I thought talk therapy was the answer as it had helped me
when I struggled with mental health issues. RD was balking at the plan, telling
me his experience in the Teams with mandatory sessions with psychologists and
how he and his teammates taunted and teased them, never confiding or complying.
Right before his first appointment with the psychiatrist RD
came to me with an alternate proposal for his treatment. It was “If we can
afford to pay a psychiatrist, maybe instead of that we can afford to get a
horse?” He went on to say that he’d always wanted a horse of his own and that
the care and training of the horse just might be the medicine he needed to come
out of his self-destructive thoughts and behaviors. So that’s what we did,
cancelled the psychiatrist appointment and RD soon had his first horse, Rocket,
a bay thoroughbred, gelding owned by a friend, Nick Chenoweth. Rocket had been
returned to Nick by the trainer he hired who said Rocket was untrainable. RD
thought otherwise. He and Nick soon struck a deal.
And yes, it worked! Not immediately, not overnight, but each
day RD got up and went outside to work with Rocket who needed a great deal of care,
understanding, and patience, for he too was damaged. Those with horses know
that keeping one involves more than just clean water and a little hay.
Soon, RD
was learning where to find the best second-cutting horse hay in this area, when
it was available, how the prices compared, etc. He and Rocket preferred a mix
of grass and alfalfa. And we bought “sweet feed”, a grain/molasses mix that
Rocket really liked and was his reward for good behavior. Ranchway Feeds was
our go-to place for that. Then, big, strong tarps to cover the hay and tack,
all sorts of tack including ropes, bridles, brushes, combs and saddles. RD
removed ticks and dewormed but brought in a mobile veterinarian for shots and
stitches and a farrier to trim hooves. If I remember right, after a couple of
farriers RD took over trimming the hooves himself. Together RD and Rocket
healed themselves and each other.
Rattler soon joined Rocket and became RD’s second horse. Maybe
he thought Rocket needed a companion. Rattler got his name after being bit in
the nose by a rattle snake when he was a colt. He was a roan quarter horse
gelding and very smart. He loved to learn and didn’t have Rocket’s startle
reflex.
I recall one of the games he and RD learned to play whereby RD put some
grain in an old tire and Rattler taught himself to grab the tire with his teeth
and bounce it up and down on the ground as the grain hopped out. Then he ate
the grain. Years after RD stopped putting grain in the tire Rattler still tested
each tire in the pasture that way.
Nick took his herd up in the mountains for the summers then
brought them down to a grazing pasture near the foothills as fall set in. One
year he asked RD to feed and water the herd at that foothills pasture while he
took a trip. I went along a couple of times. There was a young black horse with
an injury, an ugly cut, on his forehead. We watched as he tried to eat the hay
RD threw out for the herd but the other horses kept him away. Of course, RD
soon came up with a way to keep the main herd occupied with their hay while he fed
the little black horse away from the others. When Nick came back from his trip
RD told him about the injured black horse and Nick said he’d probably have to
put him down. That was the day RD became the proud owner of his third horse!
He
brought him home and gifted him to me, and let me name him, too. I named him
Sid after RD’s Uncle Sidney Russell who was injured overseas in WWII and came
home to Arkansas a changed man,
sad and quiet. Sid was a small black quarter horse gelding with a white blaze
on his nose. He was my first and only horse but RD cared for him, became quite
fond of his fiesty spirit. Sid was always watching for an open gate. Only after
he died did we learn from our vet Charlie Mizushima that Sid was stunted in
growth due to parasites in his gut and the extreme amount of scar tissue they
caused. He probably lived with a lot of
pain.
RD’s last horse, Roamer, came to us from his dad, Doyle
Russell. Doyle was a staunch Democrat and may have named this horse after
Governor Roy Romer, or maybe it was Roamer, as in drifter. I never knew for
sure. Roamer was a white half Arabian, half wild mustang gelding. He was
different from the quarter horses in temperament. One difference I recall is
that he didn’t like to walk in water, as in cross a creek. But he had a good
personality and we loved him. We loved all four of these horses but I know
Rattler was RD’s favorite.
For the next fifteen years RD had horses, and what they
brought to our lives was invaluable. He rarely rode them, aside from that
eighteen months or so he hired a local cowboy to help him with training. He
never put shoes on their hooves. Never needed a horse trailer. Instead he studied them and the way they
interacted with birds, dogs, and people. RD trusted them and they trusted him.
He learned Linda Telllington’s “The Tellington Touch” a deep massage technique
that brought pain relief and calm to each of the horses.
Thank you, Rocket,
Rattler, Roamer, and Sid. And thank you, RD, for finding your own creative
approach to restoring your mental health by giving of yourself to other living
creatures. My respect and admiration for you grew as I observed and filmed
those fifteen years of you with your horses.
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