the eulogy i read for my little brother, Sidra Royal Bullard Dumont, who lived in this body july 30, 1993–june 24, 2017.
(i tried posting over the summer but there was an error when i uploaded.)
sid holds a place in my heart that no one else does. he wasn’t just my friend or my best friend or someone who i cared for in a way like i care for my family. he was my little brother. he was someone i protected & looked out for, someone who looked up to me, someone i stumbled through some of the most complex, confusing parts of life with, someone i had hopes & dreams & secrets & memories with. someone who held my hand through life like no one else. my little brother.
it all started at crow hollow. we shared countless sunny days, bareback trail rides, sweaty hours, horses & tack together. we grew we laughed we fell we jumped…we jumped things we probably shouldn’t have. we shared lunch we shared lessons we shared work we shared pieces of our hearts. we galloped, oh god did we gallop. we dressed our horses up in funny costumes. we competed against each other & coached each other & endlessly cheered each other on.
the older barn rats all adopted younger barn rats & my friend loren & i were lucky enough to pick out sid. he worked hard, he rode exceptionally well, he shared his really great snacks, & he didn’t mind getting bossed around. okay maybe he minded getting bossed around but somehow he admired & adored us anyway. & we were kinda mean. like really mean. not in a truly malicious way, but in the “i’m gonna throw sweaty dirty lineament water on you & push you in the manure pile” way. all of us older kids were, a little hard on the younger ones. but we loved them & helped them out & watched out for them & cherished them.
i remember the moment it really happened, when sid truly became my little brother. we were all running around the barn, older kids kinda terrorizing the younger ones. & sid had a rake he dropped, one of those hard metal ones, & it fell on the ground in front of me.
i went to run after him & i hit that rake so hard & so perfectly it came up & the handle slammed me square in the forehead. it was something out of a cartoon.
sid was standing there in front of me panicked, & i just started laughing. & laughing & laughing & laughing. & i said “you did it. you finally stood up to me.” & in whatever prepubescent playground mentality of hierarchy i was in, in that moment i truly adopted him as my little brother. & we both knew it. he loved that story. he thought it was the funniest thing. he would tell it over & over & over. i can still hear his laugh & exactly how he would describe the whole scene.
he absolutely loved telling stories about our good old days. the days we spent together at the horse shows, or training for them, or goofing around on our beloved horses together. all of our best memories are with horses. one of his other favorite stories to tell was with his pony maggie. one day we rode the horses out to this huge open hacking field & i was trying to help him with someone with maggie so i was riding her while he watched from the ground. he was yelling funny things at me & i couldn’t stop laughing & maggie was taking off with me & he was yelling more about how i was going to fall off this tiny pony & i was hysterical.
maggie was now bucking & i was shrieking “you’re gonna make me piss my pants, you’re gonna make me piss my pants!” he still cracked up over that years later.
some of our worst memories are with horses too. like when maggie was severely injured & we had to rush her off to tufts for emergency care. but as with everything, we were together & we were there for each other through the hard, the scary, the sad times, as well as the elated, the hilarious, & the joyful times.
we grew up, we moved barns, we shared growing pains & heartaches & hit all sorts of bumps that come with fumbling your way through adolescence. our responsibilities & worries got bigger, reality got a little clearer, & sometimes things were a little scarier than those carefree, sunshiny days together.
in high school, i experienced my first heartbreak. my high school sweetheart & i had been dating for 2 years when he dumped me a week before valentine’s day. i was beyond devastated in the way you are when you lose love for the first time. sid sat through many sob-filled phone calls as i poured out my teenage heartbreak angsty feelings & tried to make sense of dating & love & all the confusion that comes with it.
on valentine’s day i came to school, a total wreck, & found a package in my locker. mixed cd’s, candy, & a beautiful card from sid saying how much he loved me. i remember crying. i remember being totally floored by the gesture of love. i remembering thinking that this was what family is. this is how we survive this sometimes painful life.
& that was just the person sid was, incredibly thoughtful, impeccably attentive, immensely compassionate, & extraordinary generous. he always wanted to give, to help, to support, to love other people through life.
sid experienced hardships, a disproportionate amount of them. he struggled & he hurt & through it all he somehow always thought of other people first.
we all have stories like this. examples of sid’s empathy & kindness. from little things to bigger gestures to sitting there with us through some of the hardest moments of our lives. he lived in a constant act of service to the rest of humanity. sometimes the people who hurt the most have the hardest time watching others suffer. & he wanted to give all of himself & his life to helping people & animals.
he & i had a dream of having a healing ranch. where people who were struggling & animals who were hurting could all find refuge, in a safe space, & in each other. we wanted to help people who had experienced violence by showing them the many gifts & lessons that horses have for us. by experiencing a relationship that is based in respect & love & mutual support. we would sit on the phone for hours talking about all our big ideas & wild hopes & this immense, & beautiful dream we would create together.
being separated was hard. sid spent a few summers up in vermont at a riding camp called vershire & as much as he loved it & i knew he loved it, i missed him. one year loren & i borrowed her parents mini van, found a bed & breakfast that would allow our parents to pay for a room & us to stay even though we were under 18, & we took the first boat off island to drive up to vermont & surprised him for his birthday. his face that day was easily one of the best things i’ve ever seen. no one else lit up when i walked into a room the way he did.
when i went to college it was hard, in a lot of ways i had acted as an outlet in his life, someone he could hang out with & ride with & spend time talking to. he was really having a tough time adjusting to his big sister being gone.
my freshman year of college i flew home from where i was in virginia to be in the fall fuzzy with him, the last horse show of the year, which is filled with games & costumes & chilly giggles. we were reigning cray-paper pair champions, a game where 2 people ride next to each other & hold a piece of cray paper & have to ride according to the announcers instructions without breaking it. we had his 2 horses, maggie & smokey, who were as close as we were.
truly, it was unfair. our legs would be bruised from smashing together because they moved so flawlessly mere inches away from one another. even after we won the announcer kept asking us to do harder & harder commands, everyone amused & captivated by our effortlessly synchronicity. he ended by asking us for a victory gallop, which he gladly provided, just the two of us laughing & laughing & galloping down the arena with our hands in the air, thin paper flapping between us perfectly in tact. we were truly inseparable.
i spent my first 2 years of undergrad at a precious place in roanoke, virginia called hollins university. it was a quirky place with the strongest sense of community i have ever come across. it was the most open, loving, & supportive place i’ve ever been. i raved about it to sid, & although i left the year he went, he decided to follow in my footsteps. & just as i thought, hollins embraced him, fiercely, & he flourished.
it was a happy place for him, & he connected with lots of people i hold dear in my heart. of one of favorite pictures of him is at fall formal, with one of my closest friends. i remember them sending me that picture that night & swelling with pride. my little brother. following in my footsteps. being loved & embraced by the same people. my heart was full. i’m grateful to the hollins community for all they gave me, & even more grateful for all they gave sid. he more than anyone needed that sense of love & acceptance. i know it had a profound impact on him, & as his big sister, it brought me immense amounts of joy & peace to know he was being held in the same ways that community held me.
sid had 3 big loves: horses, music, & people. as his illness began to steal his body he lost many parts of his ability to engage with the first two, but even through all of the pain & turmoil he experienced he never lost sight of his love for people.
there are good people, & then there are people who exude pure love. sid was one of the latter. to be around him was like being near the sun, you couldn’t help but feel his warmth & have your life lit up a bit brighter.
there was the person sid was, when we were kids & growing up, reckless with his body & incredibly strong, & then there was the person he became as his body deteriorated. in those later years we spent hours on the phone together talking about the earlier ones. & while i could hear the twinge of pain in his voice, i could also hear his smile. even if they were behind us, they were the best years of our lives. & we were able to keep them alive by remembering them.
& so i ask us to do the same. i knew that if i didn’t share all of those stories today, sid’s absolute favorites to reminisce about, he would’ve smacked me. he managed to cram an extraordinary amount of living into his all too short life & it is up to us to sift through & hold onto each of those precious memories.
i recently came across this beautiful song, the only home i know by thomas csorba. the lyrics are eerily applicable & i’d like to take a moment to read them.
there’s been laughter, there’s been tears. all those memories of what got us here. dumb decisions & big mistakes, lessons learned & old heartbreaks.
when we’re old we’ll sing together like we did when we were young. all the time we spent together will never be enough.
in my dreams you’re in my heartbeat, you’re the rhythm in my bones. people tell me i don’t wanna listen to them cause you’re the road that brings me home.
when we’re old we’ll sing together like we did when we were young. all the time we spent together will never be enough.
when i’m gone you’ll bring me flowers when i’m dead you’ll visit my grave, when i’m gone you know i’ll be singing my way through heavens gates.
i’ve got time & i’ve got freedom, all those memories yeah, we’re gonna need em.
we didn’t get enough time together. surely everyone feels that way about the loss of a loved one but losing someone young makes it ring all the more true. yet i feel like i have a lifetime of laughter & love stored up to hold me through. i like imagining sid singing his way through heavens gates, even if you don’t believe in that particular incarnation of heaven i know his soul left this world singing. & i like to imagine he is out of pain, back in his strong body, perhaps even reunited with his old buddy smokey.
which brings me to my last story, another favorite & must share, & the one i’ve been holding onto tightest over the past couple weeks. when we were at red pony, i introduced sid & smokey. smokey hadn’t been ridden in years & didn’t have a terrible amount of training. i had been warned that sometimes he would “just take off galloping & no one could stop him.”
on their first ride together we went out into the state forest. everything was going so well i totally forgot the words of caution i had been given back at the barn. & like most of our rides, we ended up galloping. we were bombing down the firelanes grinning when suddenly i heard in my head “sometimes he just takes off galloping & no one can stop him.” i looked over & he was at a dead bolt. i screamed to sid STOP STOP STOP & he looked at me entirely confused, gave smokey the lightest tug, & he immediately pulled up. WHAT?! he said to me, clearly annoyed by the interruption. “never mind” i said, as a huge grin spread across my face. they were clearly a perfect match, & they clearly adored each other. they connected in a way few horses & people do, & it was a pleasure & joy to watch them work together.
that is the sid i hold onto. the young, strong, carefree, talented, compassionate, incredible friend galloping alongside of me. & in whatever sort of heaven you or i understand, i hope they are reconnected. i hope there is an endless supply of rambunctious ponies, sunshine, & open fields for galloping & laughter.
my buddy, my friend, my partner, a piece of my heart as deeply embedded in my being as the muscle itself. you are missed in such an immense way. we are all lucky to have a hole this big in our hearts where your life touched us.
so as we move forward, which we inevitably will have to do, please remember that. please remember that each & every one of us is lucky to be hurting this much. because that just means we were touched by one of life’s most precious gifts: a friend like sid.
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