The time I spent in the hospital once I woke up from my coma, and the following year, are stored in my memory...let's say in a swiss cheese fashion.  I do remember the feelings of confusion.  People were upset for me, but I didn’t understand why.  Remember, I was a blank slate.  My parents were trying everything they could to help me remember, and friends would come to visit but I had no idea who they were and in fact it made things worse.  Going home should have been a happy moment, but instead it was traumatic – I knew the hospital, I knew the nurses and doctors, I had a schedule that I could focus on.  Going home was foreign to me – I was going with people that were nice but always trying to get me to remember “who I was”.

I clearly remember that first night in “my room”. I was scared; I wanted to go back to the hospital. I was angry.  Those feelings would describe me for the next few years in all parts of my life except one.  Horses.

I’m not sure of the time frame but at some point my parents decided it might be good for me to get out of the house.  My dad picked me up, put me in the car, packed up my wheel-chair and they took me for a ride to the barn.  I don’t know if they were prepared for what happened that day.  I had a shift – we pulled up to the barn, they asked me if I knew where I was – my quick response was the normal one for me by now, “No!”  Once I was placed in my chair they began to wheel me toward the barn.  As we rounded the corner I asked a simple question – “Where’s Scheggie?”  Seems like a normal question, right?  One problem - I shouldn’t have remembered the name of horse I rode!  My parents stopped dead in their tracks.  Schedule A popped his head out of his stall, and I knew it was him.  I rolled over to the door, where he put his head down and breathed in my face – we stayed that way for what now seems like forever.  My parents couldn’t believe that not only had I remembered the name of the horse I rode, but which one he was in a sea of bay horses. 

This is the power of the horse – nothing else remained for me, no other horse names, only Schedule or “Scheggie” as I called him.  That was the only place I wanted to be, the only place I felt like me – who ever that was.  My parents were smart enough to go with it and not fight it.  But, as a mother now I can appreciate how hard this must have been for them.  I didn’t remember the birthday parties, the family outings, the giggle moments, nothing, but I could remember a horse and the connection that I had with him – not the connection to my family. 

My mother and riding instructor both agreed on the plan to get me back on the horse.  Now that I look back, it was SO not safe.  Because I could balance and move my arms they decided to just tie me to the horse – DO NOT try this at home!  I had to be reminded of some of the basic rules – like what a correct diagonal was or the correct lead, but everything else I remembered how to do.  I remembered how to ride, but not how to read or write. 

Over the next year, I started to regain the use of my legs and the strength to walk by riding three days a week.  One year later I was riding, and trying out for the basketball team as a 9^th grader.  The doctors were shocked. I was the exception to the rule.  I could walk, when I was told it wouldn’t happen again.  .  I believe that riding is what made the difference, since I refused to go to traditional physical therapy – remember I was an angry rebellious teenager!

Horses saved my life – literally, to me.  They taught me how to walk and run again, but more than that, they gave me a safe place.  This was a place where the “new Michelle” could grow and develop and not feel judged, but loved.  Little Full Cry and my instructors Janet and Mary Lou gave me a huge gift. 

I had another transitional moment in high school when I found out about therapeutic riding and NARHA (the North American Riding for the Handicap Association).  I started volunteering with a local organization that just started up in Great Falls, called Lift Me Up! and had the good fortune to volunteer under Mary Jo Beckman and Colleen Zanan – two incredible therapeutic riding instructors that fueled my desire to work in this field once I graduated from college.

My senior year in high school was a rough patch – Schedule A suddenly died from colic.  This was my first memorable experience of loss.  He was at this point, the main connection I had – over family, friends, other horses – he was my rock.  Without him, I lost my path for a while. I didn’t want to ride, I didn’t want to be around the barn.  I went off to college and was still in that same place.

Once at college I needed to pick a course for PE credits, and riding was one of the courses.  They started everyone at the same level so I had to sign up for Horsemanship 101.  I was just going through the motions with the horses acting like I knew nothing about riding and just put my head down and did only what the instructors asked.  Halfway through the course I began to feel a connection again and a desire to work with horses again.  One instructor finally came up to me after class and asked me why I was pretending to know nothing, when I could be the one teaching.  She moved me into a teaching role at the next class.

I transferred to a school that had an intercollegiate riding team and equine science and management degree and was back on course.  It was here that my riding skills developed into horsemanship skills.  Some of you guys might know what I am talking about here.  I knew how to ride – I could stay on over the big jumps, ride a cross-country course and so on, but I didn’t know why the horse reacted the way it did.  Well really if I wanted to count all the stuff I didn’t know about horses I would still be counting 10 years later.

Light bulbs were finally going off and I was learning how to partner with horses, train them, bring out their best qualities, and most of all how to communicate with them.  The teacher’s and mentors that brought me through this part of my horsemanship education were Sandy Gerald, Sarah Irvin, and I began learning about “natural” horsemanship by going to clinics from different trainers.  I was a sponge. 

Again there was another huge shift for me.  During what would have been my senior year, the college was in transition and decided to cut the equestrian program.  They would still honor the classes I had taken with a minor in equine management but I would have to pick a new major – this would at least add another year to my college career (and school was something I didn’t like at all).  I was on the verge saying I was done with college when a horse and a professor completely change my perspective.  Prof. Watson was a law professor at our school.  I had taken a few electives from him and he was one of those rare professors that inspired you and made to want to learn even more.  He brought his classes to life and made you believe that you could be anything.  He sat me down and explained to me that he believed I have a talent for law and the passion for helping others, that I should consider switching my major to law.  I talked with my parents who upped the ante by saying if I stayed in college for one more year they would help me buy my 1^st horse.  Deal!  So I became a law major, and added another year to my college, but I finally owned my very first horse!

A Wink and A Smile – “Wink” was an off-the-track thoroughbred that had been thrown into jumpers without a lot of training. He had had a horrible fall in a triple combination with his old owner and they cut their losses and donated him to the college.  With the closing of the equine program, he was going for the sale barn and now that I think of it, he was my 1^st rescue.  Wink was the first horse I was able to do what I ever I wanted with, no owner or other trainer telling me what they wanted.  He taught me many lessons, but one of my favorites was how to play.  Wink loved to play!  He taught me the art of round pen work and the true power of connecting with a horse – the first since Schedule A.  He loved to run – after a few days of ring work we would go out on the bridle paths or cross country course and we would ride for hours.  If I let him he would have galloped flat out for hours. 

Professor Watson and Dr. Rogers were incredible teachers.  I had the opportunity to intern with the public defender’s office, and while working there I started to develop another thought.  By the time the kids are in the court system as a lawyer it was too late to really impact their lives.  I wanted to help give them a chance to choose a different path and that chance could only happen on the social services side.  It was at that moment that I decided what I wanted to do with my life. In addition to teaching therapeutic riding lessons; I wanted to help people create a better life for themselves...

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