Wendy Wagner, Horses on Heaven and Earth

It was mid-winter 2010/2011 and Wendy had just accepted an offer to forecast for the Chugach Avalanche Information Center.  At her going-away party in Salt Lake, long time avalanche hunter Tom Kimbrough and I arrived late, hoods on and carrying a bottle of Woodford Reserve.  At the time, my beard was a bit more unruly than it is now, and Wendy’s aunt gasped, “Wendy! Homeless people are coming in!”  

Wendy just laughed that laugh of hers and said, “No, Auntie, we are here because of them!”  

Which, of course, was Wendy’s classic way of deflecting attention and showering it on other people.  It was also not true.  We were here to celebrate a shining, shooting star who was to make her way in Alaska and eventually become director of the center up there.  We in the Wasatch certainly knew something special when we saw it.  

Wendy - we know you’re listening and laughing out there somewhere.  We miss you.  

Rawlins asked him in his bad spanish if there was a heaven for horses but he shook his head and said that a horse had no need of heaven. Finally John Grady asked him if it were not true that should all horses vanish from the face of the earth the soul of the horse would not also perish for there would be nothing out of which to replenish it, but the old man said that it was pointless to speak of there being no horses in the world for God would not permit such a thing.