She was just a little brown horse.  Looking back she was nothing special.   I have no idea what breed she was, or even how old she was.  Sonya was the horse that I rode at day camp.

But she was so much more than that to me.

I dreamed that Sonya could be mine.

I'm sure everyone remembers that first horse.  Sonya never became anything more than a day camp memory for me, but she was the horse that my heart first said yes to.  She etched herself into my being and made me forever someone who's neck cranes anytime we drive by a field that might contain a horse.  For that reason my husband always drives.  It's safer that way.

Like I said before, Sonya wasn't a remarkable horse.  But for that magical week, she was my horse.  It was on her patient back that I learned to go and whoa, turn and trot, and to fall and still love.  It was because of Sonya, for months and months after that one heavenly week, that my ten year old self, cantered around our yard until dusk, riding my imaginary steed. 

I'm sure she's long departed to eat the grass of heaven, but every now and then I think of her and am so glad that Sonya was mine, if only for a week.

Who knows, maybe when it's my turn to leave this world, I'll see her waiting at the gate.

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