Micah Alejandro rode the horses of Cochise Area Network of Therapeutic Equestrian Resources for 15 years. He died on Jan. 11, shortly before his 31st birthday. The Hereford man had suffered from bad seizures and autism since he was 2.
“He was one of our riders who came out here on a regular basis,” CANTER Executive Director Jeff Howard told a small group of family and friends who gathered for the unveiling of a plaque at the foot of the freshly-planted tree. “He loved being out here, and we loved having him. When we lost him, it left a hole in our family, because we consider everyone that comes out to CANTER — both volunteers and the riders — as part of our family. So it’s very personal for us.”
  
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The tree was a Navajo willow. Mary Anne Somerville, who has served as the president of the nonprofit CANTER’s board of directors, learned from talking with Micah’s family that he had a fondness for a similar tree at his home, where he loved watching its leaves move in the wind.
“When you got a smile out of him, my God, it just warmed your heart,” said Debbie Sineath, the program supervisor for Horizon Human Services in Sierra Vista where Micah would spend six hours of his day.
She knew him during the last two years of his life.
“And he was in pain lots of times and couldn’t tell us ...” Sineath said.
Horses don’t need words to communicate, although they are capable of learning human words. The animals are renowned for their unconditional acceptance.
“I think he felt that a lot,” said Lori Kelly, CANTER’s program director, during an interview after the plaque-unveiling ceremony. “You could always see him hug the horse at the end.”
She added, “ ... riding helps every disability, from mental health issues to learning sequencing issues to ... in Micah’s case ... many, many issues. His balance was improved. His self-esteem, I think, was improved. He enjoyed being out-of-doors.”
Micah was known for laughing in response to the CANTER horse’s nickerings and sneezes.
Gretchen Lambert, an occupational therapist, knew Micah before his CANTER therapy. She remembered how, if he did not want to work, he would holler the one word he knew. “No!”
“There were some times when he was so relaxed on the horse that we had to check to make sure he hadn’t just sort of drifted and fallen asleep,” Lambert said.
The rocking of a horse’s gait can lull people to sleep. So she might pick up the pace.
“One time, he just sort of slid off,” she said, as people in the audience chuckled, “and we kind of let him go to see if he would catch himself. We always do this in a controlled way. I know we had him riding backward. We had him riding forward. We had him riding sideways. He was willing to do whatever we did, to a point, and then he would say, ‘NO!’ ”
Micah’s parents, Irma and José Alejandro, remembered when their son was a toddler and was beginning to speak in short sentences as a seemingly healthy, normal kid.
Then he began having the seizures. They got worse and came every day and could not be controlled.
“I think after a while the communication part of his brain just short-circuited, and the only word he really knew was ‘no,’ ” Irma said.
Micah’s death, which was happened after an incident Dec. 13, 2007, at a group home in Sierra Vista, remains under investigation by authorities.
“We’re just hoping that something good will come out of his death,” Irma said. “It was a horrific manner (in which) he died. He suffered for a whole month before he died. We just pray that the system will change and make it better for the others who are being served by group homes in the county.”
The plaque at the foot of the willow says, “Dedicated to the memory of Micah Alejandro. He was a light in our world. CANTER, 2008.”
herald/review City Editor Ted Morris can be reached at 515-4614 or by e-mail at cityeditor@svherald.com.
