The Last Word

When Winged Beavers Lifted Me Up

BY BRENDAN FAULKNER ’91

When I came to Avon Old Farms as a sophomore boarder in 1989, I was told to observe two important rules: “No boarding students in the day boy room” and “Never get into a car driven by a day boy.” Who were these lucky “day boy” classmates who seemed to have the best of both worlds? The answer, it turns out, is that they are some of my closest lifelong friends.

Two years ago, Damian Fox ’91, P’23 appeared at Hartford Hospital, where I was fighting for my life. Over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in 2020, I thought I had the flu. It turned out to be endocarditis that led to five cardiac surgeries. I was on extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for a week and had my left leg and half of my right foot amputated.

My wife, Holly, had never met Damian before he walked down the ICU corridor that January day wearing a burly jacket and a Yankees cap and cradling something that seemed at once illicit and precious. He drew closer,

All of these relationships are what I believe Theodate Pope Riddle had in mind when she created the Avon Old Farms Village, designed to provide a connection to the past and a bridge to the future.

and from a blur of blue and maroon, Holly sighted the Winged Beaver emblem. Damian introduced himself and offered her his gift of an AOF hockey jersey. As they talked, my wife felt peaceful—as though she was enjoying a comforting chat with a good friend.

I was in the ICU for 46 days. Jared Rucci ’91 was among the first visitors, making the trip up from New Jersey. He showed Holly the AOF group chat about my hospitalization. As more Avonians came to my bedside, Holly and our boys—ages 11, 9, and 6 at the time—were astonished by and grateful for the unwavering generosity and kindness of these unexpected visitors. “We just had no idea anyone liked him so much,” marveled Holly. Day after day, Avonians arrived bearing restaurant gift cards, movie tickets, flowers, and, most crucially, their love and stories.

“Ninety-nine point nine percent of our stories are not family friendly,” warned Peter Duggan ’91. “But remember how we all hung out together and had so much fun? Remember the time we broke into the rink and skated late at night and drove the Zamboni? Remember when we decided to walk into town during a blizzard, and when the snowfall intensified, we had to seek shelter in a guard booth on an abandoned golf course? Remember when we dropped the huge poops made of wadded up brownies out of the back of the dragon during Boars Head?”

While I was hospitalized, Damian put together and pulled off an evening my sons Fred, Charlie, and George will never forget. He took them to the Avon campus, where they had dinner in the Refectory at the head table. “That’s an honor I never had as a student,” observed Damian. This was followed by touring the hockey locker rooms, meeting Coach Gardner and Mr. Whitty, and enjoying a hockey game. Damian treated the boys to milkshakes at the Hawk’s Nest and whatever apparel they wanted from the store.

One thing an extended stay in the hospital gives you, assuming you survive, is time. Somehow, in the everyday tumult of work and fatherhood and life, I had lost touch with some of my AOF friends. I felt like a bad alum. In so many ways, my near-death gave me a second chance. Now I am in touch with them weekly, sometimes daily. I spend as much time on campus as possible, taking my boys to Avon for hockey, signing them up for John Gardner’s summer camps, and guest teaching during Intersession.

All of these relationships are what I believe Theodate Pope Riddle had in mind when she created the Avon Old Farms Village, designed to provide a connection to the past and a bridge to the future. As Jacqueline Keller wrote, “Ms. Riddle’s village . . . has given life to something else: Eternal brotherhood to all who pass through our famed arches.”