Treasure of a Bull Rider

My Grandma was one of my best friends. She would come to the house twice a week to see my Mom and me. Every other weekend my parents let me stay at her house; I had my own room.

Grandma loved spending time with me, but she got lonely in her house. She had a German Shephard named Molly, but the dog didn't feel the void. Grandma loved Molly, but she could never fill a spot in Grandma's heart. To be fair, no one had that ability. My Mom and I came the closest. She missed my Grandpa. He died before my Mom was in high school.

When I was eight, my Grandma took me into Grandpa's office. She kept it clean but never cleared it out. It was her way of holding onto him. While we were in there, I found a belt buckle in a glass case tucked in the corner of an old bookshelf. Before I could grab it, Grandma scooped me up in her lap and told me the story behind it.

Your Grandpa Clark was a Bull Rider. At 15, his parents let him start training. His face glowed, and his cheeks turned a light red when he talked about it. A livelier side of him emerged every time he climbed on the back of a bull. It scared me, but I couldn't ask him to quit. Before I accepted his marriage proposal, I knew it was a big part of him.

When I became pregnant with your Mother, I assumed he would quit. He didn't. However, he refrained from competing for a couple of years. While he wanted to be on the road, it was important to him to be there for me during the pregnancy and spend time with his daughter the first couple years of her life. I was grateful and didn't fight him when he said he would start competing again after her third birthday.

That $20,000 belt buckle you saw on the shelf, he won it when your Mother was 11. I let her miss school so we could go to the finals of the tournament. We celebrated briefly that night. He was smiling when he fell asleep. The last image your Grandpa saw before his eyes closed was the belt buckle on the hotel room's nightstand.

I cast my eyes down as I asked, "Is that how he died?"

"No, darlin'. Your Mother didn't tell you?"

"She always says she will tell me later."

"Well, it is difficult to talk about, Jeremiah. Let me call her to ask if she is okay with me telling you."

Grandma put me down and left the room. I didn't understand why then, but as an adult, I know she didn't want to tell me if my Mom didn't think I was ready to hear about it or wanted to be the one to talk to me about it. When she returned to the room, she sat me on her lap again and began the story.

I hoped the year he won would be his last year competing. That win, to my dismay, didn't quench his desire for Bull Riding. Instead, it added to his passion for the sport. He wanted to win again and go out on the road with those who understood that side of him.

The week before the next tournament, I helped him pack and load his truck. We watched a couple of movies together. On the night he left, we danced to our wedding song as we did before every tournament. As I watched him drive down the back road, I didn't think that would be the last time I saw him.

On the fifth day of the Bull Riding tournament, a bull named Blaze bucked him off. He was knocked unconscious when he fell. Before the EMTs could get to him, the frantic bull crushed his ribs. His broken ribs punctured organs which caused him to bleed on the inside. Like you would with a wound on the outside of your body. He was alive when they put him in the ambulance. The EMTs did all they could, but he passed away before they reached the hospital.

Grandma was in tears before she reached the end of her story. I wrapped my arms around her neck, rested my head on her shoulder. After she took a deep breath as she wiped away her tears, we got up; I thought we were leaving until she stopped in front of the bookshelf. She grabbed the buckle and said, "Your Grandpa would want you to have it."

I stared at it, wishing I could have met him. Wishing he could tell me about his bull riding adventures. Even though that wasn't possible, I wanted to know more about him. I looked at Grandma, "What was Grandpa's middle name?"

"Jeremiah."