I recommitted out loud to our morning ritual, “Of course, Grace, I can spare ten minutes in the mornings to have a cup of tea with you!”
Never again did I see her moving milk crates around.
A week or so later, Lloyd and I acquired a companion for Brock, our Rhodesian Ridgeback. This was Jinny, a small, 12-month-old white and tan short-haired Border Collie who had been kicked by a horse and lost a leg when she was only eight weeks. She was very timid but delightfully affectionate.
A few days after Jinny arrived I walked past the house with Grace. Brock must have been with Lloyd somewhere as our new little dog ran after us, keeping well clear of the donkey. Jinny ran on her three legs for the half hour it took to reach a little creek flowing well enough to start getting Grace used to walking through water. She was not keen. I hopped across on rocks to the other side of the creek from where I could hold the lead rope while trying to coax at least one donkey hoof into the water. But no, Grace continued to stay put on the other side. I got tired of standing and sat myself down holding firm to the lead rope in case she decided to head back home. I was prepared to sit and wait for as long as it took for Grace to take the plunge and enter the water. Jinny, meanwhile, was sniffing out exciting new smells.
I sat quietly enjoying the bush for nearly an hour. I had a comfortable seat against a large rock protecting me from the strong, cold wind. Suddenly, Grace took a flying leap to land beside me. She was ready to continue our walk on my side of the creek. Now where’s Jinny? I couldn’t see her.
I called, “Jinny! Jinny!” but the wind carried the words away.
No matter how loudly I yelled my voice sounded very small. The next thing I knew, Grace had pushed past me and jumped over the creek that had just taken her an hour to pluck up the courage to cross. I managed to hold tight to the lead and scramble across the water fast enough to avoid letting go or falling over.
Grace was normally ever so respectful in the way she let me lead. I thought she might have been anxious to go home, but she headed in the opposite direction. I clung firmly to the lead rope, walking as fast as I could through the bush to keep up. Then she stopped. We were on the edge of a small embankment. Ahead, I could see nothing of significance.
I looked at Grace, then turned my head to the right and back to the left again, “Okay Grace. Now what?”
The donkey made the slightest downward movement of her head and eyes. There, right below us, was Jinny, chewing happily on some old bones. She looked up and left her unscheduled meal to run up the embankment on her three little legs, tail wagging vigorously.
I wondered how on earth Grace not only knew where Jinny was, but that I was looking for this little dog. She wouldn’t have known that the dog belonged to me as they had not even been introduced. But after 20 years’ experience with donkeys, while I still find the incident very touching, it no longer surprises me. I know now that my thoughts, emotions, body were all communicating with the donkey, who could put those pieces together far better than most humans.
Another six months went by before I found my second donkey. She was a cross between an Irish donkey and an Australian Teamster, quick and athletic, with long skinny legs (a bit like mine). Her name was Charlotte, far too staid for this flighty, sensitive, spirited being, so I renamed her Charley. My two donkeys made an attractive pair, both piebald with similar colouring and the same height. However, Grace’s stockier build and shorter legs meant that her comfortable walking pace was slower than that of her new companion, whose natural speed better-matched mine.
Charley soon showed herself to be extremely intelligent and ever alert, but did not want to take the lead over Grace. They wrangled for a couple of months over who would not be the dominant one. Neither donkey was interested in being bossy but apparently their herd instinct decreed that one of them had to take the lead. Grace eventually stepped up to take the responsibility but with subtle dominance in accord with her patient and gentle nature.
The donkeys added a special something for children’s visits. We had four young grandchildren who loved to help in the donkey yard: raking and bagging the manure, preparing the chaff buckets, giving the donkeys pieces of carrots and at the end of the chores, sitting on a milk crate with their own cup of tea. The children loved to ride Grace whose nature made it safe to lead her with toddlers sitting on the saddle. Charley was inclined to be flighty but once the children were a bit older, they could ride her too.
Some may argue against the notion of non-human animals with highly developed emotional lives, but the sensitivity and compassion of my donkeys has been evident over and over again. One day I had hurt my back pushing a heavy barrow. Next morning Lloyd looked after the donkeys for me and I hobbled down the hill only when they finished eating.
I put my arms around Grace’s neck. Her warmth and love seemed to go right into my heart. It touched the intense pain in my lower back to release a burst of sobbing that I didn’t understand. I stood with my head resting on Grace’s neck, my arms folded around her, while Charley ran 100 metres down the paddock to talk to the new donkeys next door. I cried for about five minutes, part of me expecting Grace to move out from under me so she could join her friends. But she stood still, holding the weight of my pain until the sobs subsided of their own accord. When I stood up, Grace turned her head to check I was okay. Only then did she trot away. As I turned to go up the hill to the house, I realised the pain in my back had completely gone! It had dissolved with my tears.
*
Every weekend, the donkeys and I went for long walks in the dry, hilly country surrounding our Bungendore property. Gradually I acquired the courage, equipment and confidence with the donkeys to do some serious trekking. From years of outdoor adventure activities I was comfortable walking in the bush and camping in wilderness, but managing animals was way beyond my previous experience. Learning the ins and outs of trekking with donkeys, however, was only a small part of getting ready for a solo journey to a new life as a single woman. This was something I wanted and something that felt terrifying at the same time.
The seeds for this decision were planted long ago, when I was awakened from a fairy tale, but not by the gentle kiss of a prince. My awakening was thunderous. Our son Marcus was killed suddenly in a road accident. He was not yet nine years old. For his bereft family, it was a loss that seemed impossible to survive. Yet we did, each in our own way, eventually; emotionally stronger, more caring and wiser than any of us would have been without the pain and trauma of his death.
For 20 years after Marcus died, my life was a marital roller coaster, lows far deeper and longer than the better times, which were not so much highs as brief periods of calm. During these painful years I was also awakened to my own dark history and how its tentacles had found their way into my current life. A nightmare I had was telling: The foundations of my house were on fire. Desperately trying to stamp the fire out, it was already raging out of control. Soon my whole house was on fire. The heat, the flames were all-consuming. Before I awoke there was nothing left, only flaming redness. Everything was afire. My whole world was burning.
I was hurt by Lloyd over and over again; and in retaliation I hurt him. Our relationship was hell on earth, but it took years before I could admit, to myself or anyone else, how bad things were. I couldn’t face it because I was so afraid of living alone. My internal struggle seemed never-ending: one day raging at the bad things my husband had done since Marcus died, and next, clutching onto all the good things we had together, especially our outdoor adventures, then getting angry again. I finally found the strength to stand on my own two feet only when I mustered the courage to confront my underlying fear, that of being alone.
By mid-2003 my anger and fear had dissolved enough to feel we could live together peacefully again. But it was time for me to discover who I was without being someone’s wife. I began to contemplate living alone, free of partnership entanglements and obligations.
Running a household and looking after other people’s needs was what I was good at. I was deeply conditioned to put my husband’s needs before my own and felt guilty on the rare occasions I did not. It was another era when we