Christmas Tales of Alabama (12 page)

In a rare instance in which a church is involved in a lighting display, this private display was donated to First Baptist Church of Glencoe, and parishioners and members of the local community came to help. The display now consists of more than 100,000 lights and 160 channels of computer animation, with Logan Moore still at the helm. Student minister Dustin Teat said the church wanted to offer the lights as a gift to the community. In addition, the display provides a way to tell the story of the nativity. The computerized lighting display is synchronized with music on a radio frequency visitors listen to in their cars, then the biblical story of Jesus is told on the same frequency. In 2010, the display was called the Light of Christ. “People have loved it,” Teat said.

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Steve was excited. It was almost Christmas, and the teenager was going to visit Zeke, a big caramel horse that lived at a nearby ranch. Steve and Zeke understood each other. Both had experienced life's darker sides. Both had come to the Spirit of Hope Youth Ranch in Wilsonville, Alabama, to heal from their wounds.

The ranch was a place where children who had been abused and neglected and left in foster group homes came to learn about horses. The horses at the ranch had also experienced abuse or neglect, only to find love again at the hands of wounded children and the caregivers at the ranch.

Born about 1981, Zeke was much older than Steve, but he had a new spring in his step since coming to the ranch.

Not long before Christmas 2009, Joy O'Neal, director of the ranch, asked if any of the children would like to help staffers create the annual Christmas card, which would be sold as a fundraiser. After seeing a similar photo, Joy wanted to stand a horse draped in Christmas lights, small cool lights that would not bother the horse, next to a wooden cross. She knew that only one horse was up to the task: the aging, ailing but ever patient Zeke.

Steve was among the more than a dozen children who arrived at the ranch to help “decorate” the beloved horse. Steve had Asperger's syndrome and often struggled in life. But standing at Zeke's side, watching the big horse stand patiently amid the chaos of laughing children and tangled cords until the lights were finally hung just right, Steve understood that not all things in life are bad. He knew that living beings could be hurt and not only survive but also become stronger.

The photo of Zeke at the cross was taken just after the sun set. It was perfect. It was Zeke's patience and obvious joy at the attention that he received from the children that made him a favorite at the ranch.

In 2007, Zeke, the then twenty-six-year-old retired show horse, was spending his days in a pasture at the Kings Ranch property, with his physical needs cared for but his emotional ones unmet. The owners of Kings Ranch, also a place that aided children, had discontinued the livestock portion of its program in the 1990s but kept the horses, such as Zeke, with no place to go. Caregivers were considering euthanizing Zeke, who suffered from Cushing's disease and arthritis and had become depressed.

When Spirit of Hope organizers got use of the property in 2007, Zeke came with it. A veterinarian suggested that a new medication might help Zeke. The Cushing's disease caused the horse to have a heavy, furry coat because of an inability to shed. In addition, he was unable to sweat as he was supposed to, so he was often hot and uncomfortable, and the Cushing's also led to hoof problems.

Spirit of Hope offered a combination that could make Zeke well again: medication to help his arthritis and children who offered him unconditional love and wanted to brush him constantly, removing his hot, outer coat.

Soon the head-hanging Zeke had a twinkle in his eyes. He often slipped out of the pasture through holes in the fences. The holes had been there all along, but Zeke wasn't compelled to use them until his mischievous nature was reawakened. “He helped us out by showing us where the fences needed repairing,” Joy said with a laugh.

Zeke, a horse that suffered from a disease that caused heavy fur to grow, loved being brushed by the children at Spirit of Hope Youth Ranch.
Photograph courtesy of Joy O'Neal
.

Zeke was the darling of the ranch. Standing at his side, brushing him, small, hurt children realized that even big horses like Zeke could be hurt. They could describe to counselors the times that they felt they were under a heavy coat, feeling suffocated, like the beloved horse.

They could love Zeke and know they were loved in return. Unlike humans, horses don't have the ability to hide emotions or lie.

The children would often bring peppermint to the horses as a treat, especially at Christmas, when the candies were in abundant supply. Zeke's love for peppermint outshone that of the other horses: he could hear someone unwrapping one even some distance from the barn. Knowing Zeke's sweet tooth, a teacher at a school in Concord, Alabama, had a plan.

At Christmastime each year, her students collected peppermints to use in a variety of math lessons. When the lessons were completed, the students made a stocking for Zeke, as well as for each of the five other horses at the ranch, and filled them with peppermints.

Because of his remarkable recovery and a special affinity with the children, Zeke was inducted into the Alabama Animal Hall of Fame in 2009. Ranch workers took the horse to the Galleria in Birmingham, where, dressed in a top hat, Zeke was guest of honor at the ceremony.

He is the only horse to be inducted into the program.

The hall of fame website writes of Zeke:

Zeke's most miraculous quality is his ability to touch people. When a child walks into the barn, Zeke rests his head on the stall door, winks and gives a little nicker as if to say “Choose me!” You can almost see the ice melt away from the frozen heart of a child who has not known unconditional love. Zeke represents hope, because even a broken little red horse can find comfort and love and give it back threefold
.

On July 5, 2011, when Zeke was about thirty years old, he slowly walked his aching bones to the shade of his favorite tree and lay down. “We knew he was telling us it was time for him to go to the lush pastures of heaven,” Joy said, her voice filled with tears.

Zeke was buried beneath that favorite tree. A student has begun fundraising efforts to place a memorial at the site.

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Little Brenan Ashmore could scarcely wait to unwrap the box. He didn't much care what was inside. He knew it would be special because it came from his friend Jonathan.

When the exuberant eight-year-old redhead managed to get the paper off the package, his typically broad grin seemed to widen by an inch. He held up the gift: a maroon football jersey with the number thirty-two.

He pulled the jersey over his shirt and refused to take it off. For Brenan, that gift was the best of Christmas 2006. It was a bond of friendship. Though often happy-go-lucky and with a personality that sparkled, Brenan had spent much of his young life in the children's hospital in Birmingham.

Brenan was born with hydrocephalus and, by age eight, had undergone more than forty operations to help stop symptoms of the undiagnosed syndrome that resulted. Brenan had pain in his head, shoulders and abdomen and sometimes lost his ability to walk and would use a wheelchair or walker. Shunts drained fluid from his head and spinal cord, and though he was frequently in pain, a smile almost never left his face. His mom, Susan, calls him a “people person.”

While Brenan knew his disorder would never allow him to play football, he played baseball for the Miracle League and loved to watch his favorite football team, the East Limestone High School Indians in Athens, Alabama. His dad, Pat, would take Brenan and Brenan's brother, Cameron, to cheer the Indians each Friday night in the fall. Over the years, the coach and players grew accustomed to seeing Brenan's wide grin when the Indians scored.

But in 2006, one of the team's standouts, Jonathan Pinque (pronounced
Pink
) took special notice of the little boy with the unquenchable spirit.

For those who didn't look beyond the surface, Jonathan and Brenan seemed an unlikely pair of pals. Jonathan, relatively small for a running back and dark skinned, could cover the length of a football field in a blur of pumping muscles. Brenan's fair skin freckled easily, and his gait was awkward. One was preparing to enter college, and the other was in elementary school.

Football was the common love that drew the two into a friendship, but what sealed the bond was something less tangible: shared courage and tenacity.

Brenan wouldn't learn until later that Jonathan's life also had a rocky beginning.

In 2006, Brenan Ashmore (left), walked onto the football field at East Limestone High School hand-in-hand with Jonathan Pinque.
Photograph by Kim Rynders, courtesy of the
News Courier.

Coming to America

Jonathan was a toddler in a Haitian orphanage when Audrey Pinque, an American, saw him during a visit and fell in love with his bright smile. She adopted the child and brought him to this country. Jonathan's mother and adopted brother, Antony, were white, but Jonathan seemed to fit with the blended family.

That didn't mean it was easy for Audrey.

Jonathan recalls one memorable Christmas: When Jonathan and Antony were about ten years old, the family was living temporarily in Mexico, before the move to Alabama. It was a tough year. Audrey was struggling and couldn't afford a Christmas tree. The three went out and found a dead tree, spraypainted it white and then made papier-mâché balls and popcorn strings for decorations.

It was one of the most beautiful trees Jonathan had ever seen.

A few days before Christmas, Audrey tearfully told the boys she hadn't been able to afford much, just a small gift each. She gave the packages to the boys early: a small bag of cookies.

As Audrey sat crying, Jonathan and Antony comforted her. They had a surprise for the mother who had sacrificed so much for them. A Cuban potter lived a few houses away, and the boys had stopped by his house and asked him to make a pot for Audrey. Each of the boys' names was etched into the sides.

It was a Christmas none of them would forget.

After the family moved to Athens, Alabama, Jonathan's life would change again. His adoptive family—his mother, brother, grandfather and uncle—piled into the car one night to take Jonathan for dinner to celebrate his thirteenth birthday. There was a terrible crash, and his mother was killed.

The Unlikely Hero

Then, in 2005, Jonathan watched as his closest friends nearly drowned after their car plunged into a pond. He risked his life to pull two unconscious friends from the submerged car. In May 2006, Jonathan was awarded the Carnegie Medal for heroism.

When Jonathan entered his senior season as a running back for the Indians, Coach Jeff Pugh told the players about Brenan's condition and pointed him out in the stands. Pugh, a friend of the Ashmores, had a special affection for Brenan. The coach's description of a little boy whose life was so filled with challenges resonated with the young running back with the scarred past. Jonathan couldn't get Brenan's smile out of his mind, and late one night, he called the Ashmore home.

Susan jumped when the phone rang. Who could be calling at midnight? It was Jonathan.

“He said, ‘Is this Brenan Ashmore's house?' and introduced himself,” Pat recalled. Jonathan said he'd been thinking of Brenan since talking with Coach Pugh that day. “He said, ‘It was weighing heavy on my heart and I couldn't sleep until I called to find out how he was doing.'”

It would be the first of many calls.

That season was a good one on the field. The Indians went to the playoffs, with Jonathan Pinque one of their leaders. After he scored a touchdown during the playoff game, Jonathan looked into the stands and spied the familiar red-haired boy who was cheering loudly. Jonathan didn't stop running when he reached the end zone, crossing the field and jumping a fence to get to the boy in the stands. Then he handed the touchdown football to a grinning Brenan. That ball would be displayed prominently in Brenan's bedroom, where he would often take guests to see the touchdown football.