I drove across town to Caprock, my heart pounding, and when I walked in, the girl brought out a little terrier wearing a tiny vest that read READING BUDDY, and beside her sat a small girl with a picture book open on her lap, reading aloud to the dog.
I stood there, my dread giving way to wonder.
That little girl of his was a child in a reading program, and Daisy was a literacy dog my Frank had trained, because struggling young readers will read aloud to a patient dog when they are too embarrassed to read to a person.
The story unfolded, and it was pure Frank. He had learned that children who struggle with reading, who are ashamed to stumble over words in front of classmates, will happily read to a dog, who never judges, never corrects, just listens. So my Frank had trained Daisy as a reading-companion dog, and taken her to the library and the elementary school, where struggling readers read to her and slowly, without shame, learned to love books.
The little girl reading aloud was one of his students, a child named Katie who had been far behind in reading and terrified of it, until Frank and Daisy came along. She was his favorite, the staff said, and always helped weigh Daisy on their first-Saturday visits.
My allergic Frank, sneezing and medicating himself, had been quietly teaching struggling children to read, one patient afternoon at a time, with a little dog who listened.
Katies teacher came to the clinic when they heard I was there. She wept telling me what Frank had done. Dozens of children, she said, had learned to read, had found confidence, had come to love books, because of Frank and Daisy. For many, reading to that gentle dog was the first time they had not felt stupid.
Katie showed me how well she could read now, a whole page, barely a stumble, and then she asked where Mr. Frank was, and I had to gently tell her he had gone to heaven, and she hugged Daisy and cried.
I wept in that clinic. My husband of forty-three years had been secretly teaching children to read, changing the whole course of their lives, through a dog he was allergic to.
I could not let that end. I took over Daisys care, and I took up Franks reading visits, and now I bring Daisy to the school and the library, and struggling children read to her, and grow, the way Frank always knew they would.
Katie reads to Daisy every week still, and helps me weigh her every first Saturday, and I take my allergy medicine, just like Frank.
My daughter did not know why I drove across town. Now she knows her daddy secretly taught children to read. That little girl of his was Katie, who loves books now because of Frank and Daisy. I lost my Frank, but I found the quiet gift he gave, one child, one page, at a time. He would be so proud. I am.