LeOmi's Solitude Read Free

dressing
in southern fashion but LeOmi did not perform as lady-like as she
should have and her hair remained defiantly short. She had even
rebelliously white tipped her black hair and jelled it into
spikes.
    There were no conversations. No discussion of
classes. Pomp and circumstance was not something that was expected
of her. After all, this was an inconvenience for Grand-Mère. At
least that is what it felt like all the time.
    In her spare time, LeOmi could be found at
the local gym studying Kendo and Kickboxing. She went from a skinny
ten year old to a tall liquid young woman who could “take down”
anyone who challenged her. LeOmi’s instructor, Henry, said that he
had never seen anyone move with such grace and speed.
    Henry Ben Franklin, a retired West Point
teacher/instructor took her under his wing. Part Cherokee Indian,
he taught her things like archery and horseback riding, but his
passion was sharp edged weapons of any kind. In the year that LeOmi
studied under him, she learned more than she ever thought
possible.
    His favorite saying was “Discipline is the
human character through applications of principles.” Then he would
say, “But you’re a girl, how would you understand that? …Did I get
you riled up yet? You seem to focus better when you’re angry.”
    Henry got to know all his students, but
during the summer months, when few people were in the gym and they
had more one-on-one time, he asked her, “LeOmi, what do you want to
be when you grow up?” A common enough question.
    Her answer was, “The best.”
    “The best? The best at what?”
    She said, “At everything I do.”
    Henry had a ranch just over the causeway. He
bred and stabled horses and taught horseback riding. He gave her a
job there as sort of a go-fer in the summer. That is where LeOmi
found out how much she loved horses. Her favorite was called Fury,
for all the right reasons but throughout the summer, they both
mellowed. They calmed each other. Henry just called him “her horse”
and she spent as much time with Fury as she could.
    “That horse has changed because of you.”
Henry said as he approached LeOmi and Fury after a busy day at the
ranch.
    “Why is it that you can care for that horse
so much, yet you are so distant with the people who are right
beside you?
    LeOmi continued brushing down Fury, then she
said, “Fury doesn’t expect anything from me, yet he can be a true
friend. It isn’t like that with people.”
    “Some people aren’t as bad as you make them
out to be. We all run away from things—”
    “I’m not running away.”
    “Hah. You’re just like that horse was,
irritated by people.”
    “I am just working, not running
anywhere.”
    “I don’t mean your job, you are doing a fine
job, and you’re a hard worker. No, I mean how you deal with
people.”
    LeOmi kept brushing the horse, and brushing.
Henry had been a good instructor and friend.
    He waited for her to answer, and waited.
    “I need to reach my goal, a goal that may be
unattainable, through no fault of my own.”
    She threw the horse brush down into the
bucket, startling Fury. She grabbed his mane and hugged him.
“Sometimes it seems like life is so meaningless. So...empty.”
    “Yes.”
    Henry inspected the horse. “This is a fine
animal, strong. He just needed someone to care for him, to believe
in him, someone who could identify with him. That was you. Someday,
you may find people that you can identify with.”
    “Not likely.”
    “When a mockingbird sings, it is imitating
others, it can sound like a robin or it can sound like a hawk. What
is its true voice?”
    LeOmi shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t
know.”
    “Sometimes, even the ones closest to it don’t
know. Heck, it has sung those different songs for so long; maybe it
doesn’t even know any more. But if we listen…”
    “We can learn?”
    “And understand. You…and I…still have a lot
to learn.”
    Henry was an uncommonly honest guy. She tried
not to get too close