My husband, Jake, makes a living as a cowboy for Tiffany Cattle Company at the Allen Division, in Allen, Kan. His family has a cow/calf operation that he grew up on in Sedan, Kan. Jake has always made a living on the back of a horse and spent a lot of time starting horses, but had little show experience until recently.

The day before Thanksgiving my cell phone started blowing up with messages from my group chat. This wasn’t out of the ordinary because me and my three closest friends tend to text all day long. I was just sneaking off to the bathroom of my parents’ house in North Carolina to take a break from the high emotional climate caused by a recent car accident they had no business walking away from.