Tribute to Dave

Dave Mann Brant 1934-2013

He taught me patience.

I was weeding in the courthouse garden when an older man in a beat up hat asked if I was the new county agent. I said I was. He proceeded to ask me gruffly why I had not told him the grasshoppers were coming. With irritation he told me they were eating everything on his ranch. I said, “for one thing, I just got here. I didn’t know they were coming.  There have been several articles in the paper submitted by APHIS, federal agency, about the insects.” “I don’t read the newspaper,” he explained. “There have also been news programs about the grasshoppers presented by Montana State specialists.” “I don’t watch television.”  “Then how would you have liked to get this information?” I asked. I shook my head and thought this is going to be a long year. Somehow he expected I would know who he was, where he ranched and had his cell phone number.

He taught me history.

One summer night after the symphony in Whitefish, Dave asked if I would take him downtown for a while. Now it was a school night for me and it was already 10:00 but I said yes. He introduced me to the Palace Bar. You have to know that Dave did not drink although he encouraged me to do so. I declined since I was the driver. He told me about raucous evenings in that place 30 or 40 years ago. Our next stop was the Remington across the street. Funny, these places had never been on my must see list. Dave told me how there used to be two bars in here and sleeping rooms upstairs filled with bunks for patrons that over imbibed. The stories he could tell of skiing and partying in his younger days. Whitefish had not changed in many ways.

He taught me humility.

Dave asked if I could do something about his cherry trees that never produced fruit. He said, I just want enough for one pie that is all I ask.” I stopped by one afternoon and trimmed the heck out of the trees. Brad and Dave dragged away a pile of branches as big as my car. I told him to put water on the trees as least once a week. Later that summer, I got a call in my office. It was Dave. He and Chica were parked out front of the health department building in the old Cadillac. He said he wanted to deliver something to me. I ran down and he handed me a half of a cherry pie. The crust was all carved and beautiful. Natalie had been able to make three pies from the cherries off the trees this year. He wanted to share the bounty with me. He said, “You know, you might actually know something about this stuff.” After five years, I had finally proved myself.

He shared his faith.

Dave told me how he had a heart attack right in the Kalispell Emergency room. While recovering in the hospital, he swore that Jesus appeared at the end of his bed. I believe him. It changed his life completely. Wherever we broke bread – restaurants, bbqs, picnics, or at the ranch, we always held hands and Dave would say a blessing. He thanked God for his friends, his gifts and even his challenges. His faith never wavered;  it seemed to strengthen every day.

He shared with me his love for music.

I accompanied Dave to the Glacier Symphony several times a year. We watched them perform at Rebecca Farm, on the water in Bigfork, at Flathead High School, the Christian Center and the Whitefish Middle School. He’d tell me about the lives of the various composers, the differences between the instruments, how he idolized John Zoltec, and his appreciation that came from his mother. We’d dress up, have a special dinner that included seafood and always a chocolate dessert. Those evenings Chica begrudgingly sat in the backseat. This past winter he sheepishly told me he was having a great time but it was at my expense. When I asked, he said everyone keeps asking me who the blonde is but I don’t answer. I had to laugh, too.

Dave and I shared a wonderful friendship. I still have bags of peppermint tea in my purse that I carried with me in case we went somewhere they didn’t serve his favorite drink. My mother was visiting from New York a couple weeks ago and we had lunch at the ranch. Dave said he really wanted to know where I came from. He could rest assured I hadn’t been hatched. He and Mom had a great time comparing their surgical scars as I prepared the meal. They talked about me as if I wasn’t there, swapping stories. He always included me on the cattle drives with Kathy and Steve. I realize it was work but those days were some of the best memories of my life.

I will always treasure everything that Dave taught me- love of God, love of family, love of the land, love of music and love of cattle. I know how happy he is now. He is my hero riding his horse well into his eighties. What I miss is knowing that there will be no more Friday afternoon phone calls asking if I want to meet at “our place” – Scottibelli’s. No more driving the cattle up the mountainside to summer pasture and down again in the fall. No more long conversations about the composers before the symphony. What I do have is the gifts he left – love, laughter, friends and a sense of home in Montana.

Pat McGlynn

11/27/13

The Fall

Some experiences in our life are just too painful to talk about until enough time has passed and the healing has begun. My divorce and a traumatic horse accident changed my life profoundly. These events effected me physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Three years ago, I stepped up onto a horse I did not know. She had been recommended by a friend. Within seconds of getting on board, the mare bucked and bolted and I was thrown to the ground. As I laid in the dirt, in excruciating pain, I knew something was seriously wrong. An ambulance ride later, after a myriad of tests, I was to learn I had broken my sacrum. The doctors agreed, it would be a long road but I should recuperate completely. I went through denial, anger, depression, frustration and helplessness. I could not run away or escape this fate. I had to endure. Wheelchairs, walkers, canes and eventually yoga therapy. Once I could drive, it was daily trips to work with a therapist. A broken back is every horse person's worst nightmare. How did this happen? Would I ever ride a horse again? Would I want to?

I had just purchased Lakota ten days earlier. I was not on her the day of the accident. When I was strong enough to visit her, a friend brought me to the farm. My walker creaked and groaned under the burden as I could not put any weight on my legs.My arms took the full force of my body. Lakota was hesitant until I began giving her treats from the little cloth basket. I was terrified of her, so afraid she might accidentally knock me over. She seemed disproportionally huge. I felt like Humpty Dumpty, fragile as an egg. I was not ready to give her up but it took months before I could muster the fortitude to even brush her.

My agony was the loneliness, the feeling of separation, isolation and vulnerability. I had thought of myself as courageous, strong and invincible and here I was broken and beaten. I could not leave my front porch for weeks. My cabin is not handicapped accessible. I had been carried in and would have to be carried out. It was summer in Montana and everyone was hiking, boating and playing. Everyone but me. Even my dog, Aries, was being cared for by a neighbor because I could not carry her dog food or let her in and out. I questioned all my beliefs about who I was and my place in the Universe. Why had I been abandoned? What had I done to deserve this? Why was all of my support 2,500 miles away? How could I have made such a mistake? What was my future going to be?

Even though my divorce had been ten years earlier, familiar emotions flooded in. The loss of identity, the crisis in faith, the unending ache, the turning around to see nothing had remained the same. Where was I going? Who was I now?

In spite of set backs, I have remained hopeful of once again finding a partner to share my journey and to continue enjoying horses. I could say that men and horses are too dangerous and the chance of getting hurt just too high. But, what is life without love? I am learning how to take more calculated risks. The first mistake was to trust my seat to a horse that I did not know. I have done the same with men. I had to learn the hard way. It is easy to find oneself in a wreck, when you haven't taken your time. There is no rushing in relationships or horses.

To mitigate my risk, a horse must: be calm, listen, be intelligent, be kind, willing to learn, actively engaged, have self control and gives his best effort.

I still dream of riding side by side, hand in hand with my partner over an open meadow, horses walking gently. If he is not a horse person, we will find another way to enjoy our time together. That is not carved in stone.

I realize that I was not forsaken, that I am blessed to be walking soundly. The break in my bone was millimeters from my spinal column. I am so very lucky. My world shifted after my divorce certainly but it also opened and expanded. "Pain is the resistance to what is". Once I could accept, I could move forward.

Divorce did not make me afraid to love again. I am living in faith and trust. I am more aware. My fall did not make me give up horses; it made me cautious. I do not know how long Lakota and I will be together. She has helped me regain my confidence and is willing to put up with my amateur attempts at training. Each day I become more knowledgeable about my Self. I will not pretend to know what is right for anyone else. We all have our own path to follow. I can only share my story and continue my daily practice of unfolding.

Unfolding

A friend gave me a package of seeds. They were labeled "mixed hollyhocks". She said they were selected from a patch of brilliant colored flowers. I waited almost a year to put them in the ground. 

First I had to wait for the snow to melt and the soil temperature to rise. Then I removed all the weeds that had encroached and prepared the bed. The seeds were lovingly placed and tamped into the earth. Now the waiting. 

Hollyhocks are a type of plant, a biennial, that will not produce flowers the first year. The foliage will flourish and the plant will set strong roots but the flowers do not appear until the second year. No matter how I desire to see what color flower these seeds hold, I have to wait and allow the plant to mature on its own schedule. No amount of my wanting, worrying or pleading will change the course of nature.

I do not know if my seeds will even germinate. Maybe they lost their vitality in storage. It is possible that the young plants may not make it through their first winter. Equally, the potential is there for a full spectrum of colored hollyhocks to grace the wall of the cabin for years and years. The bees and the hummingbirds will drink their nectar, they will pivot their petals to greet the sun each morning and will provide a cheery welcome into my home. I cannot see the future.

Why is it more challenging for me to acknowledge this natural unfolding in relationships?  How often do I feel the pull  to break open the seed to see what mystery it holds? By doing that,  I would destroy the opportunity for growth. The seed cannot set its roots and push its tender  leaves through the soil if it is pulled at, has too many nutrients applied or dug up to have its progress inspected every day. 

Planting a seed is an act of faith. Faith that a power greater than ourselves is taking care of the seed and has a divine plan. If the seed is meant to thrive, it will. We can, of course, help it by providing water and keeping the weeds from invading, but we cannot change the plan. I am doing my best to see that allowing relationship to unfold at its own pace is acknowledging my faith. If I strive to see what lies ahead, I am destroying the newly planted seed. My need to know how the story ends is like needing to know the hollyhock's color. Do I really feel that I can control the outcome? Why would I want to? How would that contribute to my evolution and growth. I, like my seed, am strengthened by the challenges of my environment. Can I trust the process and learn from my years of gardening? 

Whether the hollyhocks grow or not, it does not change who or what I am. I will continue to enjoy all the other flowers in my garden if this package does not produce. When it is time, if necessary, I will plant again. I  find pleasure in the waiting, watching and unfolding everyday. Only the Divine knows the plan. I relax into that knowing that I am the gardener that tends, but I am not in control, nor do I wish to be.