The Menagerie

Remember back in high school, when you studied Shakespeare? Remember talking about each character's fatal flaw - that one thing that made them most vulerable, and eventually led to their downfall? For Othello, it was his jealousy; for Hamlet, his indecision.

For my mother, it was horses.

I mentioned previously that my mother hoarded not only stuff, but animals. We've never been sure why, but I think it was a combination of her love of horses, and her inability to "let go" of the fact that Grandma (her mother) got rid of her old ceramic horse collection. Mom truly had a very caring heart, and she had a particular soft spot for animals, but she had no sense of "reality" about them. At various times, she has owned: horses, dogs, cats, fish, sharks, cockatiels, macaws, pot-bellied pigs (my nieces got mites after those were brought for a visit), chinchillas, a hedgehog, and goats (including an earlier trio named Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, and our buddy Carl). Most of them simultaneously. And these are just the ones I actually know about.

At the time of her death, she owned 3 indoor cats, 3 outdoor cats, one blue & gold macaw, one cashmere goat, and lots and lots of horses. The cats were sweet. We found homes for the inside ones (TW & family adopted one, and EV gave the other two to a friend). The outside ones may still be there to this day - they were friendly enough to pet, but skittish. We didn't trust the local humane society not to euthanize them. Fortunately, Bolinas is the type of town where if you let it be known there are some stray cats who need periodic food, someone will make sure it gets there, so we let them be.

Carl, the cashmere goat, was friendly, but useless. She'd purchased him as part of a plan (she always had a plan), to harvest his wool to spin the old-fashioned way. She planned to use an old family heirloom spinning wheel for the task. Unfortunately years ago, someone in our family had committed the unconsionable crime (in Mom's eyes) of donating the spinning wheel to a museum in the midwest (near me). She periodically asked me to use my connections with local family members to locate said museum and request that the spinning wheel be returned to the family so she could have it. Strangely enough, I never got around to that. Carl ended up being given to a neighbor, in payment for a perceived debt. (I don't think it was really owed, but he figured he would convince us unsuspecting, gullible kids to pay him. I asked him to detail the charges in writing, but oddly enough nothing ever materialized.)

Lola, the macaw, was an interesting case. When we headed out to the house for the first time, my SIL told me she wanted nothing to do with the bird. She hated that da(rn) bird and its squawking. Guess whom the bird loved the most? DH was similar - wanted the bird to stay far away. Guess the bird's second favorite person, and the only man she's ever liked? To the rest of us, Lola was vaguely tolerant, but mostly short-tempered. She could talk, and picked up pieces of what she heard - several times we heard Mom's telephone mannerisms ("Uh-huh... uh-huh..," "AAANYway"), and even Mom's laugh.

Shortly after our arrival, there was some excitement - Lola had wandered off her perch and into the bathroom and tub. There she commenced squawking, so SIL went to investigate. There, in the bottom of the tub, was an egg. Lola had laid an egg! How was this possible, one might ask, when Lola had no access to males of her species. Well, says my stepfather, it is possible to encourage the bird to lay an egg by.. ahem.. "stimulating" it in the proper area by hand on a regular basis. Which is what Mom had been doing prior to her death. So we were the lucky witnesses of the results of Mom's.... parrot fondling. Lola moved in with TW and SIL (and their two kids, and their roommate, and their three cats, and their dog, and their fish, and their lizard), but no additional eggs have been forthcoming, despite my selflessly encouraging my SIL to perform the necessary ritual.

Thank goodness the fish/shark tank was empty, or we'd have been tasked with finding a home for Jaws, too.

By far, her softest spot was for horses. Mom's fascination with them began back in high school, and in her stuff I found a beautiful project she had made around that time about horses and her time working at a dude ranch. She had owned them as long as I could remember. I learned to ride young, and even competed in some shows while we lived with Mom and LL. I like horses, still do, and take pride in the fact that I relate well with "horse people," thanks to Mom. It takes a certain personality type to boss around something so much larger than you are, and the folks I've met around stables have generally been salt-of-the-earth types.

But for her, it wasn't sufficient to own one or two horses for pleasure. When I was younger, she only owned 2 or 3. But over time, that number increased. A lot of the details are spotty for me, partially because we lived with her only sporadically, and partially because she was never honest about what she owned. She would never admit she owned them - she'd say she was watching them "for a friend," or only sponsoring them, or deny ownership altogether. She didn't want the news getting back to Grandma, who disapproved of the money that flowed away into horses.

Moving to Bolinas made it easier - they had just enough land to put up a small paddock and shelter. And she didn't have to admit how many she had. Whenever Grandma would hear she had another horse (never did figure out how she got that information, when Mom wouldn't talk to her), Grandma would sigh and complain about it. I eventually lost track of how many passed through her possession. One time, she'd be taking care of appaloosa's. The next, she was raising Shires, a large horse similar to a Clydesdale, which could carry her large frame. Later, she was "rescuing" wild horses. And no matter how many she had, several were always explained away as being "watched for a friend."

See, it wouldn't have been quite so bad if she could have afforded the horses, but she really couldn't. She would spend all her money on hay, alfalfa, boarding fees, etc., then not have enough for the phone bill... or the car repairs... or food... or gas money... or.... At some point in life, most of us learn priorities - needs first, luxuries second, right? That never quite clicked with her, and the horses came first, no matter what.

Unfortunately, even putting their needs first didn't guarantee she could care for them. I had hints of it when I was younger, but after Mom's death I found confirming newspaper clippings dating back to my teens, showing how horses had been removed from her care due to neglect and starvation. I know there were hints of it again when I was in college, again after I graduated, and finally, the summer before her death. Her story was always the same. She was being targeted by the humane society; they saw a situation without checking with her and misinterpreted it; they came during the rainy season and that's why the paddock was muddy; the person boarding the horse for her was not taking proper care of it; someone was trying to force her to lose her horses, and so they set her up; it was a rescued horse, battling worms, and that's why it was so skinny; it had gotten into some brambles, and that was why it had infected wounds on its side; it had been left unattended for a few minutes, and that was how it had gotten tangled up in its lead while tied up. So many excuses. Once, and it would have been believable. But time, after time, after time, she lost horses to the humane society. And once she thought they weren't looking, she bought more.

I read some of the letters she wrote about the situation - to lawyers, to editorial columns, to friends. They are intelligent, logical, and well-reasoned. She outlines perfectly logical explanations for every situation. There is no good reason for me to think she would knowingly mistreat these animals, and she certainly had the intelligence to know better. But yet it is too much to ask that in all these accusations, I should believe she was the innocent one.

At the time of her death, we believe that she owned 12 horses, based on notes and scribbles. Based on e-mails, she was in negotiation to buy at least 2 more. We only found half of them. Two had been confiscated recently by the humane society; 2 were being boarded about 3 hrs. away by someone who loved them (Mom was way past due on the board - we traded the horses for the bill); 1 was in the East Bay, near my brother & family, since technically it was my nieces' horse (board was somewhat current, and we found a better home for that one); 1 was being paid for by automatic withdrawal from Mom's overdrawn checking account, with checks going to a Colorado address, but the woman ignored all e-mails and phone calls (fine, whatever... like I need the headache of trying to sell a horse in Colorado!); someone e-mailed me 8 mo. after Mom died and tried to tell me that we owed her for board on another horse, but I basically ignored her (She had known about Mom's death when it happened, yet waited 8 mo. to contact us? Yeah, I'll put a rush on that check...). We heard rumors that others were in Oregon, and scattered around the state of CA. We never did find those.

So, why have horses you never see? Why have horses you board in states several hours away from you? I believe she thought she was rescuing them. Saving them. And she didn't want her husband and family to know how many she truly had. She thought she was hiding them from her husband, but while LL might not have known the details, he knew she had bought them. Isn't that one of the signs of addiction? "Do you hide your (alcohol/drug/horse) consumption, so that family and friends won't know when you (drink/do drugs/buy another horse)?" "Do you tell yourself and others that you can, 'Stop any time'?" "Do you spend money on (alcohol/drugs/horses) instead of on the essentials?"

And this is where her flaw truly became fatal. The summer preceding her death, the humane society had taken two horses into custody due to severe neglect. She had a choice - she could accept the charges, spend 3 days in jail, and be done with it. Or she could fight the charges. To fight required $50,000 in legal fees, up front. She had already spent 1 day in jail - two more and she would have been clear. But she hired some scheister instead. Unfortunately she had no money, so she went to her brother and gave up the one thing that would have given her financial security in the future. She did the one thing I had told her never to do without letting me know first, because I knew she'd get bilked. She sold him her half of Grandma's $800K house. She signed it away to him, free and clear, for $50K to give the lawyer. By the time of her death, the lawyer had done maybe 50 hrs. of work on the case, yet the fee was non-refundable.

Because she had given up her share of the house, she did not have the money to keep up payments on the $250K mortgage she'd taken on her own home (to replace the $20K one almost paid off - Grrr... don't get me started...) Because she didn't keep up the payments, the house went into foreclosure. She died on January 2. Foreclosure sale was scheduled for January 16. We didn't find this out until after her death, and LL knew something was up, but did not know the details. She had hid them from him.

LL believes Mom purposely stopped taking her anti-clotting medications a few days before her death, knowing that would cause a fatal embolism. Her last call to me was on Christmas Day, which she concluded by telling me, "I'm so proud of you, and I always have been."

I think he was right.