This is the beginning: The story of my mom and her beloved grandfather.

Trust

Don’t look down. The horses picked their sure-footed, fearless way along the path. Carol swallowed her fear and focused on the broad shoulders of her Grandpa Willis, who led the way on Blondie, his favorite palomino.

He looked back, squinting under the brim of his hat. “Trust your horse, and don’t look down.”

She did as he asked. And when a wasp would angrily buzz around her head, he would anticipate her panic and say, “Hold your breath, Carol. It closes your pores and they can’t sting you.”

And so it went every morning during the long, hot summers that she spent at her grandparents’ Wyoming ranch. None of the other kids was interested in following him out at sunrise every morning—for which he was silently grateful—but he came to look forward to Carol’s quiet company. He fixed the stirrups of a saddle that belonged to one of his favorite horses, and it became her saddle and her horse, and so it was.

She was small for her age, but determined, strong, and focused. And over the course of these quiet mornings, this unlikely duo came to share an unbreakable bond: a shy, skinny girl and a giant of a man that everyone knew as “Willis”. Many years later, from the only prison cell that would ever hold him, he would tell someone that he remembered Carol as she was then, and it made him cry because he loved her so much.

Heels down, toes up, left hand on the reins, hold your breath. He chose his words so carefully and he spoke so little that she heard his voice in her head even when he wasn’t talking. Sometimes the people who choose their words most carefully are the ones who leave the most indelible marks.

To be continued…