Where the Red Fern Grows Again
“I had heard the old Indian legend about the red fern. How a little Indian boy and girl were lost in a blizzard and had frozen to death. In the spring, when they were found, a beautiful red fern had grown up between their two bodies. The story went on to say that only an angel could plant the seeds of a red fern, and that they never died; where one grew, that spot was sacred.”
― Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows
In the sixth grade, Mrs. Hawkins read Where the Red Fern Grows aloud to our class (my friend Erin and I think anyway), and I do believe that while she was reading, I was doing my note writing (which Mrs. Hawkins posted on the bulletin board for everyone to see.) I was wayyyyyyyy more obsessed with boys than dogs in that era. Still, it made an impression because it was connected to the emotion of mortification I felt when even the JH and HS students in our K12 school made their way down to my classroom in the mornings to read what I had written.
Growing up on a farm, I didn’t get attached much to the dogs we had. We had Spooner, Big Bo, Flash, and Midnight before we switched to cats. Most of our cats were a little more resilient, less likely to run out into the road or roam into the path of a coyote.
But when my husband and I married in 1994, we decided we should get a dog. We were living in San Marcos, TX, for school and drove to Cameron to get a Dalmatian from breeders there. We had researched Dalmatians really well – like the we-had-seen-the-Disney-movie kind of well. So we picked a dog, named him Bandit, and then began our understanding of the breed.
In 1995, after moving back to the family farm, my husband came home with a female Dalmatian he found. We made flyers, but no one answered, so Jane Dog came to live with us. At the time, we were super focused on only breeding if we had another registered dog, so he gave me a girl puppy at Christmas. Her name was Hayden (he was in his watching the tv show Coach era).
In May of 1997, both girls gave birth to puppies (a total of 13). It was going to work out perfectly because they would be ready to go to their new homes in six weeks, when our first child was due. However, our baby boy decided to surprise us six weeks early while we still had 13 puppies at home. Over the next few years, we had other litters of puppies and two more sons. Bandit, Jane, and Hayden were house trained but somewhat hybrid dogs, sometimes living outside in a dog run, sometimes allowed to come in.
In 2007, at age 13, Bandit started showing signs of dementia at the same time my mom was showing signs of early onset Alzheimer’s. My kids were 10, 7, and 5 and the dog (and the Gram) they had always known was changing. He couldn’t see or hear well anymore, and he would go off barking at them if they came too close. We made the decision to put him to sleep and bury him at the farm where his (and our) first babies were born. Within the next few months, the girls’ hips were failing. They had also broken out and had a joy run around the neighborhood, Jane possibly hit by a car. After talking with the vet, we decided to also put them to sleep and bury them with Bandit on the farm.
It was difficult, the decision to put them down. They represented our early marriage: the time we spent before kids with only a pet and the time we spent having babies (and puppies), the life we experienced during those early years – the struggles, the joys, graduating college, our first jobs, our first home, our boys going to school for the first time. Our Dalmatians had been there for all of those firsts, our constant companions. Bandit’s dementia also mirrored my mom’s Alzheimer’s and the changes it brought to all of our lives. We decided three kids and two careers plus my mom’s diagnosis was enough and vowed we didn’t need to get any more dogs for a while.
That lasted about 7 months. I had begun asking for a girl dog, not just a female but a girly kind of dog. I was surrounded by males in my house and decided I really needed a girl. Since the baby maker was closed, I thought a girly dog would suffice. And I told my friend who knew someone with cocker spaniel puppies. Um, yes, please. My friend April had one when we were growing up and THAT was a girly dog. Plus, Lady and the Tramp, to continue the Disney theme. The same day we brought home Carly (General Hospital era), a woman showed up at the door saying she heard we were looking for a small dog so she brought us a stray. Bugsy (Bedtime Stories) was a chihuahua mix who looked a little scraggly and rough with huge eyes, and the middle son instantly became attached.
Carly and Bugsy trekked through the next part of life with growing boys. Carly ran with them in the snow, played fetch, and cuddled. Bugsy survived a night in the pantry when playing “hide and seek” and got to spend time tucked in hoodies or under the covers. The boys took them for walks, and we took them on vacations. They were part of the family. When everyone in the family was awarded superhero names, they became Bugsy the Cat and Carly the Bear (their apparent disguises). I was Banshee, but I won’t analyze my middle/high school boys’ love of their mother.
During the Carly and Bugsy era, the middle kid brought home Where the Red Fern Grows to read for Ms. Welty’s class at school. He only had to read parts at home, and due to his dyslexia, we were doing a lot of reading together in order for him to actually do it. I would make him read a page and then I would read two. By this time in my life, I was completely invested in dogs as pets – not just farm wanderers, my mom had full blown Alzheimer’s and was living in an assisted living center, and life was hitting hard.
I got invested in the book, in the characters, as we read it together. I didn’t remember what had happened from 25 years before, and when we got to the part with Little Ann on Old Dan’s grave, I couldn’t read it without crying. Through my actual sobs, I read the lines, while my kids kind of consoled me and kind of laughed at me (which is our normal grieving process still today).
Life was different after dogs and kids and the two intertwined, after marriage work, and after dead and dying parents and grandparents. My heart was different.
In 2012, we moved to a school/town where my 3 sons would spend the rest of their school years (except the baby’s last one). Bugsy and Carly were there for the move, always by our sides. In 2013, my mom and dad died a month apart (Mom from Alzheimer’s complications and Dad from cancer), and in 2014, we decided we should breed Carly. No one answered her dating ad in the paper, and the youngest son began arguing that he had never had his own dog, trying to convince us to buy a male cocker spaniel. And that is how we ended up with Ace (superhero era still – Batman’s dog), the very large cocker spaniel. The youngest son was 12 at the time, the oldest was going into his senior year, and the middle was somewhere in-between. Ace very much enjoyed the fact that boys in this era often have crumbs and random food in their bedrooms.
It was during this time that the youngest brought home Where the Red Fern Grows and asked me to read it with him. This time I was prepared. I knew what was coming. The middle kid might have cracked a few jokes about how I was going to cry, but I had my grief walls up, and I was determined. But damn if I didn’t get to that part again and break down.
What is it about Little Ann’s heart breaking that breaks mine every time?
Ace and Carly became parents in 2015 on a Saturday, and I started babysitting our friends’ tiny baby girl on the Monday following. My house was again full with the baby and puppies as my oldest prepared to graduate and leave for college. We kept one puppy at the middle’s insistence that he needed a dog, too. (Superhero) Thor became part of the wild crew we had. Baby Girl and Thor grew up together, Ace trying to take care of them both. And we stayed busy with one son in middle school, one in high school, one in college, our friends’ baby, and my Aunt Clarice who I took to get groceries every week.
The four dogs developed their individual and together routines. Carly and Ace opted for surgery to avoid any more litters. The boys played football and basketball, and ran track. They broke bones, got stitches, punched (and repaired) a few walls, developed friendships, dated and broke up with girls, showed pigs at stock shows, and went to college with money inherited from my dead parents. There was college football for one year and college track for a few years and lots of travelling to see siblings play and run.
Covid brought everyone home for a few months, during which the two youngest sons turned an old clubhouse into a chicken coop and bought baby ducks and chickens. Carly tried to eat the babies, but we saved them. The other dogs didn’t seem to care about catching them, but they all stood outside the pen watching them. The baby girl was older, and her little sister came over and held the babies, too.
And then came a big move to a new town and new house for the youngest’s senior year. The friends came, too. The chickens came, the ducks came, the dogs came and all enjoyed the big yard with the pecan trees dropping snacks. Leaving the house where 8 years of life happened wasn’t easy. The oldest helped with moving until the end, when he said he needed to leave so that he didn’t have to see it completely empty, to see us close the door on that chapter.
Bugsy made the move (his 4th house since we got him), but he wasn’t doing well. Age was taking its toll. And after a particularly far football game night, I came home to Bugsy dead under the kitchen table. Bugsy’s eternal resting place is between the bushes, under the pecan tree, in that backyard.
The next few years included football in December at Texas Stadium, another broken bone, state track meet in Austin, more girlfriends, more break ups, family trips with girlfriends included, surgeries, more moving, giving up the chickens and the ducks, leaving friends and family, and learning how to empty nest with only the two of us and three dogs. Like the early days in San Marcos with Bandit, we learned how to be content with simplicity, to shop together, to sit quietly together with the dogs.
In 2024, the two oldest sons got married, the middle and his wife graduated college, we moved back to West Texas, bought a house, got two more chickens (Laverne and Shirley), and had to put Carly to sleep at age 15. She was my girl, and it wasn’t easy. The kids all came by to say goodbye.
2025 began with my brother-in-law’s accidental death, and appreciation for my grown kids and their spouses/girlfriend who made the trip out of state in January to be there for family. Grief and joy seemed to be constantly weaving in and out of our hearts. The youngest’s college graduation, middle’s first engineering job, first homes for both couples, first Saturday game nights, and Thor’s lung cancer spreading and keeping him from breathing.
The middle son, his very pregnant wife, and I took Thor to the vet to put him to sleep. After he was technically gone, he made one more jerky movement as my son reached for him, making us laugh through our sobs.
My husband once again said that we would be done after these dogs, no more, it’s too hard. But I worried about Ace all alone. So we adopted Tito, a very small long-haired chihuahua mix puppy, and he ran circles around Ace.
A puppy and a baby. We have a trope. Grandson #1 was born in November. The baby and the puppy will grow up together.
And, because it is my story arc, in December, Ace ended up with some kind of probable spinal tumor, suddenly stopped eating, and then stopped sleeping, stopped walking . . . We slept in the living room with him among all of our Christmas containers out and ready to decorate. We took off work. Our last baby met us at the vet, and we put the parenting era to rest.
That was it. It wasn’t that we loved him more. But we definitely had the most difficult time with his death. It was the end of that section of our lifetime. The Dalmatians made up our first 14 years of married life, of having babies and young children. The cocker spaniels made up the next 16 of the school years with our kids, of creating young adults, husbands and fathers. We planted our red fern as best we could.
The oldest son and his wife’s baby girl will be here by the end of this month, and the youngest son started the New Year by getting engaged.
Life is so short. A baby comes early one day and gets ready to have his own baby the next. There’s so much life in between that we live without noticing the details. We begin this next era with the grief tears of the dying era and the joy tears of watching the red fern grow in its place: the Tito era of watching our sons build their lives, of watching the grandchildren grow and laugh and play. We intend to spend a lot more of this era watching, appreciating, letting our full hearts overflow.
And in about 9-10 years, I intend to have some reading time with my grandchildren, to tell them about Little Ann and Old Dan and maybe I will get through it without the tears. . . but I doubt it.
“I’m sure the red fern has grown and has completely covered the two little mounds. I know it is still there, hiding its secret beneath those long, red leaves, but it wouldn’t be hidden from me for part of my life is buried there, too.”
“Yes, I know it is still there, for in my heart I believe the legend of the sacred red fern.”
― Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows