AN UNLIKELY FRIEND
by Robin Mix

I was watering the front lawn when I looked over and saw the familiar purple wrapper carrying the "Searcy Living" magazine lying on the driveway.

I walked over to pick it up,thinking that I would look over it later. However, for some reason, I didn't wait until later. I sat down at the bar in the kitchen and began browsing through the magazine. As I began to read the stories, I saw a picture of a friend I had worked with previously, and I read the stories about Dr. Cox and his work in Honduras, and the letters written about foster children, churches, Christians, and living in Searcy, Arkansas.

I moved to Searcy in 2001, but had worked here since 1996. I didn't much like Searcy, I thought, and didn't want to move here, but did so for the convenience of work.

In 1993, at the age of 39, I had my first heart surgery. Ten years later, at the age of 49, another heart surgery and a heart attack, and again at 50, a coronary bypass of 5 vessels. God had certainly been gracious in allowing me to survive. He had led me to a surgeon - a living legend in the field of Cardiology: C.D. Williams. God was in the room guiding his hands and I survived.

Also, in 2002, I was wrongly diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I spent the next 2 years going from doctor to doctor to discover that I did not have MS. I was never correctly diagnosed with any condition.

In the midst of this, my brother gave me a horse. An ex-racehorse who had been abandoned and abused. We formed a bond the moment we looked eye to eye. Her name is Minnowbucket. I spent every day feeding her, talking to her, and listening. I gave up my motorcycle riding, and a dream of learning to fly, due to my dizziness and nausea associated with my medications. I thought I had become the Horse Whisperer. I had not!!

Life seemed to have smoothed a bit, when in 2006 there was another bump in the road. My horse DixieChick kicked me, broke my ribs, and tore my ACL and MCL in my right leg. It could not be repaired. I wore a brace, dealt with it, and went on about life. Until 2007, October 28, at approximately 6:00 p.m., when I fell backwards off a ladder 4 feet off the ground and landed on my right leg.

As I was flying backwards, knowing gravity was about to take over, I clenched my teeth. I hit the ground on my right leg full force, and felt the bones give way. The fall was only a couple seconds long, but it felt as if it lasted for hours. When I hit the ground, I knew instantly that I had major damage. I lay on the ground for a few minutes, moaning and trying to drag myself outside the fence, praying that my 5 horses would not come around the corner to investigate and do further damage to me by accident. Horses are very social animals, but luckily I had already fed them and they were out in the pasture grazing.

I was at the barn alone, with no-one near enough to hear me scream, when I realized my cell phone was in my pocket. I called 911, and the lady who answered was a God-send. She stayed on the phone with me until the ambulance arrived. The gentleman who came to my side was also a God-send. He talked to me and calmed me. He assured me that I was going to be okay, and he stayed close and held my hand in the back of the ambulance. I have never thanked him and have asked people in the community where I kept my horses, Center Hill, if they knew about this man. Several people said they knew he was a First Responder, but did not know his name. I describe him, and say that he has a stutter. People say, "Oh yeah, yeah, I know who you are talking about. He's a great guy, but I don't know his name."

I found myself in the hospital, pain relief had been administered, and when I came to, I was told that I had 15 fractures down the tibia and fibula to my ankle. Surgery had been performed. My knee had been destroyed, and donor bone to screw the metal plates to had been put in place. I continually complained of pain in my teeth, and only later did I find out that I had damaged my teeth from clenching them together, causing them to loosen. After a few days in the hospital, I was moved to Physical Therapy.

Anger... real, unbridled anger came over me, and stayed for the next 16 months. I was never angry at God. He and I had been through that years earlier, and I knew that it was not His fault. I couldn't walk, and I didn't want to participate in life. I stayed in bed on pain medications, Xanax, muscle relaxers, and anything else I could connive to get. I tried physical therapy, but was so drugged, it was virtually impossible and annoying for the therapist trying to help me.

I was so completely numbed of any type of feelings except anger, that I spent many days thinking of ways to end this misery I was in. Then God showed up again, gave me a whole room full of angels, Frank Reaper and his staff. I was told that they had never seen anyone with this much damage, but they felt they could get me to walking. The nerve in my leg had been compromised, causing me to have foot drop (the inability to pick your foot up when you walk), and my leg had no control of its direction due to the torn ACL and MCL and damage inflicted due to the fall. I saw an orthopedic specialist and was told that the ER on-call doctor had done as good a job on my leg as possible due to the extent of the damage. He did tell me that later on I would likely have to have the plates and screws removed because of the pain and post traumatic arthritis in my foot, hip and pelvic bone. My left leg also became arthritic due to it having to over compensate for the damaged leg. Due to the amount of surgery scars and scar tissue on my right leg, the possibility of losing blood flow was very real, and I could lose it, and have to have a prosthesis. I said I would cross that bridge when and if I came to it.

I received a call from my friend Chad Cook who said, "Minnowbucket needs you. She really needs you to take care of her." That call changed my attitude, and I went back to physical therapy, completed as best I could, and went about life again. I consciously made a decision to not watch anything on television unless it was Bible based. I read the Bible. I prayed and I prayed, and I prayed some more.

My prayers were answered in their own time. I changed the way I looked at my situation, and I changed my lifestyle. I had asked God to take from me the desires of the flesh that I had staunchly upheld for years, and He did. Not all at once, but gradually and with knowledge, love and understanding. I learned that believing in God, the death and resurrection of his Son Jesus, reading the Bible, to be the Truth. Once you fully accept that truth, you cannot pick the parts of the Bible that you want to live, you have to strive daily to overcome weaknesses and better yourself. Do I think I am now perfect? Absolutely not. But I am on the way to becoming a better person. You have to plant a seed, pray about it, and give it to God. He will take care of the rest.

When I moved to Searcy in 2001, my house was a revolving door on weekends and holidays in the summer. I loved to cook out on the grill, drink beer and sit out by the pool with friends. When I became sick, the phone stopped ringing and the doorbell stopped as well. I did not hear from any of the "friends" who had been so eager to visit before. I did not receive an offer for help, or a home cooked meal brought to my house, or even a take out hamburger. I paid to have my lawn mowed in the summer, and the pool cover didn't come off for two years.

After my brother had given me Minnowbucket, I did a thoroughbred query search and found her to be the great-great-grandaughter of Secretariat. He is the Ninth (9th) Triple Crown Winner, who won the first triple crown in a quarter-century at the Belmont Stakes, where he won by thirty-one lengths. Secretariat also broke the time/track record at Churchill Downs in the 1973 Kentucky Derby.

What is more amazing than anything else about Secretariat is that he was a phenomenon. He was able to run the times and attain the speed he did because he was trained by one of the best trainers in the world, but mainly because he had the heart and the will to win. He had an advantage no one knew about until he was put down in 1989. The autopsy showed that his heart weighed close to 22 pounds. The average thoroughbred heart weighs 9 pounds. Secretariat's heart was all in proportion, not a mutation. Obviously, Secretariat possessed the large heart gene: a gene that is passed down the bloodline. Minnowbucket definitely has the large heart X factor.

Minnowbucket is the best friend a person could have. I still have her and her son, Little Joe. If she allows me to be her caretaker, I intend to do so until she or I are unable to be cared for. They live on a farm owned by a good friend. I try not to let a day go by without being with her and her son, Little Joe, who also has a big heart.

Moving to Searcy was a God thing. I live in a great neighborhood, next door to one of the best friends a person could have: Joseph Baird. He is on summer break from his second year of college. He calls me his "second mom," visits when he is home, and calls to check in on me. God put me in Searcy because of the people, the community, and, I believe, the Christian atmosphere.

Adversity has allowed me to evaluate and find true friendships. If I had not moved here, I would never have met the First Responder who so kindly cared for me. I would not have met Joe Faith, who gave his best in trying to teach me to fly, even after I almost stalled us out on take-off. I would not have met and become friends with the guy who has "been there," always checking in if I don't call. He is the gentle man who allows me to keep my horses at his farm, and a man of true conviction, and a man with a big heart: Chad Cook. I have been blessed.

I have learned from Minnowbucket that if you're kind it will show in your eyes, that friendship transcends differences, and building a relationship takes time and effort. I have also learned that the race isn't over until you've crossed the finish line, and that whatever you do in life, try to enjoy the ride.

Most importantly, I have learned from my very good friend Lynda Taylor, who tirelessly cared for me and sat with me in every hospital stay, that there are no secrets to life. Believe and trust in God.

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