Mandy — A Life in the Field
When I think of Mandy now, the memory that comes first is the auction ring: my stepdad beside me, the clatter of hooves and the hum of voices, and the dizzying rush of being young and determined. I was in my late teens, new to bidding and already in the rabbit hole. I’d bid on the first two teams that came through the ring and been the high bidder at about $2,000 a team, but the owner hesitated and wouldn’t let them go. By the time the third team came out I was so wrapped up in the moment I had to ask my stepdad what I’d bid on the last one. Then a pair of mares walked in, and I bid up to $1,800 and bought them. Mandy was one of those mares.
From Auction to Field
We trained that team together. I was there for the small, ordinary miracles: the first tentative steps of foals, the way a mare would nudge her newborn toward milk, the long days in the field when the sun sat low and everything smelled like hay and earth. I remember milking them by hand when I took them away from the farm and their foals to pick up corn at other Amish farms. I spent years in the field with those horses, learning their rhythms and earning their trust.
When Mandy’s mate died, it felt like the end of an era. But Mandy kept going. She became my steady partner for many years after that—pulling, working, standing quietly beside me when the day was done. She gave me foals, she gave me work, and she gave me a kind of companionship that’s hard to name.
The Last Day
A few days ago she didn’t come back to the barn. I went into the woods to find her and discovered she had laid down and could not get up. I tried to move her into a better position, but she simply couldn’t rise. In that moment the choice became clear and terrible: to let her continue suffering, or to stop it. I couldn’t tell anymore whether I was trying to end her pain or my own.
My mom, my stepdad, and I were there together. I put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger. It was a very sacred moment for all of us. When she stopped breathing, the pain stopped—for her and for us. As I walked away a conviction reverberated through me: WE WILL MEET AGAIN GIRL. That certainty felt like a promise and a balm.
