Today we had to say goodbye to our Hannah, as she moves back to her home state of Colorado. Hannah has worked for me for two years, since Baby Girl was about 4 months old. She started out just working in the barn, feeding horses and cleaning stalls. I began to teach her horsemanship and english riding and she blossomed in front of my eyes. She started out as a 19 year old kid and is leaving today as a 21 year old woman. Tough times and tougher lessons were endured and learned during her time here, and her work in the barn was invaluable.
But what I am going to miss the most is the relationship she had with my daughter. “Hannah” is the first word that meant another person besides myself that she learned to say. And she would screech it and shout it and scream with happiness when she would see Hannah working outside. She would demand to go outside to see Hannah and she would run to her with outstretched arms. For her part Hannah was always happy to see Baby Girl and would play with her for hours. Hannah saved my sanity during those long days when I needed to get away, or go outside and ride. She was always up for anything I asked her to do, and she did it with all of her heart.
As an older mom, one of the absolute hardest things for me to do in order to have a child was to basically give up the life I had before. Because no matter how you think it will work out, the life you had before will completely cease to exist. My life was horses. Riding, teaching, training, cleaning, organizing, horseshowing. I still do all that to some extent but if before I worked 60 plus hour weeks, now I work maybe 20. When you have a child something has to give, and for me that something was the one thing I knew how to do.
Hannah stepped in when I really needed someone. God has this crazy way of putting people in my path when I need them. He did the same thing right before Skylar was born, by sending me an old student to teach and do camps for me during Skylar’s first month of life. She was a literal God-send, and Hannah was too. Slowly, I began to trust Hannah with watching and babysitting Baby Girl and it didn’t take me long to establish a babysitting schedule of sorts with Hannah. She was what I needed in order to be able to occasionally feel like my old self again. And, Bless Her, because she never once complained. She NEVER ONCE said she didn’t want to watch my child, or that she’d rather do the barn work. This girl has a heart as big as Texas.
Perhaps this blog post isn’t as humorous as the others, and perhaps people will find it boring, but I could not let this day go by without telling Hannah, one more time, how much I will miss her. My daughter doesn’t understand that she won’t see Hannah from here on out and I hope that at 27 months old, it won’t have too much impact on her. But I absolutely know that she will remember Hannah and if Hannah comes back next summer (like she promised to!) that Baby Girl will run to her with outstretched arms, screeching with happiness to see her Hannah.