Daydreams & Diaries

by Taylor Black

  Taylor’s Diary

  October 29, 2000

  The anticipation of disease is a bitch no one should ever know.

  The waiting is like a rollercoaster with the severest low.

  Day in day out the same, no news has yet been heard,

  And so the time will pass as we wait to learn the word.

  A doctor here, a hospital there, to me it’s all the same

  For now I just sit waiting for the day that I go lame.

  My body bruised and beaten will surely quit somehow,

  Until that day, I’ll wait and pray for when the time is now.

  Chapter Three: Pot on Possum Long

  I remembered all the concern about the year 2000. “Y-2K!” Everything was going to crash. For some reason, all of my life the year 2000 had contained a vague sense of foreboding for me. Call me crazy, and my ex-wife has, but even when I was young I had some strange fear of 2000 as if something bad were going to happen in that year. Superstition I guess, like the Mayans and 2012.

  When Taylor and her girlfriend got “busted” for a joint of marijuana, I thought that was the seminal event of the year. Of course, I didn’t know about it until big brother Chad clued me in as my ex-wife hadn’t bothered to tell me of the arrest. Taylor had been at Pam’s and while there she and a young lady—who shall not be named—were nabbed by the coppers with a bit of reefer. At one time or another some of Taylor’s siblings had their share of “incidents” with the police, but Taylor was my only blood child who has entered the Miss Demeanor pageant. I found out when Taylor’s hearing was and showed up at the courthouse. I said hello to Pam and she ignored me. Taylor, between us, rolled her eyes. Her parents exasperated her.

  The judge gave Taylor probation and she was sufficiently contrite and I took her to a meeting of my 12-step program which was a joke as she had gone to the “Hall” for years for Thanksgiving and Christmas and knew quite a few of the people, but she said the Lord’s prayer along with all of us and was polite to everyone. Yet she wasn’t “one of us.” In fact, she was a bit amused at me for dragging her there.

  “Well, what do you think of the program, Taylor?” I asked her.

  She smiled at me and replied with a touch of a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “I liked the prayer.”

  I couldn’t help it, her comment made me laugh. I wasn’t mad at her. I wasn’t even disappointed. I was amused. But I was able to hide that…or at least I think I did.

  Still I was irritated with Pam for not informing me of Taylor’s bust but I was thankful she retained one of her former boyfriends as Taylor’s attorney as he seemed to do a good job. I always admired her ability to get legal help. Later, Courtney told me the circumstances of the bust, or what I now refer to as the “Pot on Possum Long.”

  The girls parked across the street from the house of a police officer, who saw two girls smoking something suspicious in the car in the parking lot of the Possum Long Nature Trail where I had taken Taylor when she was a little girl and more interested in flowers than weed. Taylor was indeed culpable in the incident, but it was the other girl’s grass and Taylor suggested that the other girl eat the stuff, but she didn’t, and when the police officer knocked on the smoky car window and asked Taylor’s buddy if they had anything, the girl had replied “weed” and Taylor took the blame because her buddy’s mother was a total loon who would have freaked out on the other girl. Taylor got the probation and her pal didn’t. Taylor “took the fall” for a friend, but she never told either Pam or I, only Courtney, and Courtney related that story to me after Taylor died, for it was a secret between sisters.

  But then some odd karma took over I guess, for a few months later when Taylor was being treated for a brain tumor and being oh so politely poisoned by chemotherapy it was pot and only pot that relieved the nausea of chemotherapy. All the wise solons in the U.S. Senate who are so opposed to medical use for marijuana should have to have a child with chemotherapy; they would change their tune then.

  I guess “reefer madness” seems really inconsequential when you compare it to a brain tumor operation which would take Taylor and her family into uncharted territory. Taylor never tired of teasing me about her actually violating probation by using the marijuana during chemo. I wonder what she would say if she were here. Maybe…

  Why not, Pops, you were the one who taught me about irony, always pointing it out in stories I read.

  But you kids were really dumb to puff pot across the street from a police officer’s house.

  Can’t argue that, Pops.

  I don’t know when I stopped being “Dad” and picked up the “Pops” moniker. When she was in tenth grade maybe? I said to Taylor in my mind,

  Your Possum Long partner is out in Oregon now I think, finishing up her college degree.

  She was on the eight-year college plan, Pops.

  Why Oregon?

  Why not?

  Is it because of the pot laws?

  Well, they don’t hassle people for pot in Oregon.

  That’s why she went?

  No, not really. Well, maybe. It’s not like she is Polly Pot Head, Pops. Her grandparents are there and they volunteered to help her pay for college if she came to Oregon. It’s beautiful country out there, Pops.

  You’ve been there?

  Only when called, Pops, only when called.

  Is Oregon like heaven?

  No, Pops. Oregon is not like heaven. There is nothing like heaven on earth, but there is nothing like earth in heaven.

  Chapter Four: The Elephant in the Living Room

  I am reading from Taylor’s diaries that Courtney found and shared with me. After discovering a poem I came across a statement she wrote: So besides all that, mom’s still an alcoholic, but I’ve decided not to deal with it.

  I’m glad you don’t drink, Dad, Taylor’s ten-year-old voice resonated in my head. I remember her saying that to me. She was little when I stopped drinking and didn’t see me as the active alcoholic I once was. In fact, I might say that Courtney and Taylor inspired me to stay sober as I believed my daughters deserved a loving—and sober—father.

  But her diary entry haunted me and took me back to a time that was most unpleasant for Taylor. One evening Taylor called me up to rescue her and I saw my ten-year-old daughter carrying her little Care Bear suitcase down Seashell Lane as I turned onto the street to scoop her up. She was crying and distraught and I would repeat that description in testimony the following year in a courtroom.

  There would be many things the girls kept from me about their childhood on Seashell Lane, incidents that Courtney has related to me now, all those years later, which I am powerless to correct. I guess the girls were trying to protect the protector. I know now that their childhood was dysfunctional. And at one time I had been a part of that dysfunction.

  In this family pot was not the drug of choice for substance abuse. Ours was a good middle class American family with its compliment of alcoholics, active and in recovery. After all, alcohol was legal and ours was a law and order family. Alcoholism is an insidious disease which still carries a stigma as if there was some moral failing in the suffering alcoholic, as if he just had some willpower he could stop drinking.

  And for me alcoholism was progressive, if it wasn’t arrested the disease just got worse. Where there were children involved there were safety issues. When my marriage began I had the problem, then we both had it, then I got much worse and was given my walking papers. Shortly after the divorce I got sober and remained that way.

  Ironic, I suppose, but just like Jack Lemmon in the movie The Days of Wine and Roses, the separation saved my life, and the life of my daughters, for I entered my twelve step program and never left. One evening I would drive over and pick Taylor up, taking her out of an untenable situation.

  I would go out and get a mortgage for a house which I allowed the girls to select in a neighborhood that was within a mile of mom’s house so they could visit her on their bikes. Eventually the disease, and that’s what al
coholism truly is, would take a sabbatical for a year or two in, shall I say, the Lee Remick character, with the benefit of some recovery before recurring in a bit milder form that Taylor was more able to deal with, as her later journal entry would suggest. But the elephant in the living room didn’t go away entirely; in the year that Taylor was sick the elephant lurked and, on occasion, tromped around the living room.

  I know the elephant was always lurking in me as well, only a drink away, but I was blessed by the fact that Taylor never saw me drink even if, over the years, I became something of an evangelist for temperance. Not surprisingly, some people didn’t find my evangelism endearing.

  As she entered adolescence, I realized Taylor was no little angel and that she drank as did nearly all of her peers. Like most parents, I didn’t know to what extent my child drank. Certainly she didn’t drink in my house, but I have a picture of Taylor with a beer bottle in her hand alongside her girlfriends at age 16 or 17. But there was no photo album of debauchery.

  My own twelve step program was the equivalent of a crucifix to keep the disease at bay and the famous “steps” have been effective all these many years, but not everyone “gets it” and that is a shame for Taylor deserved better, every child deserves better and there was always a shadow of sadness on Taylor’s face and in her big brown eyes turned inward when the subject of alcoholism was broached with her. It was her parents’ Achilles Heel. I ached for Taylor, but I was unable to do anything to help her. I wondered if she picked up that beer in the photograph in a mimicry of someone she dearly loved but couldn’t understand, for addiction is difficult to comprehend. That Taylor developed an Al-Anon approach was, I believe, the wisest thing she could have done. She and Courtney were the only kids among the seven siblings that took that approach initially.

  I’m glad you never drink, Pops, she says to me now.

  So am I Taylor, so am I.

  How many years now, Pops?

  Reagan was president when I last had a beer.

  Gee, you’re old, Pops. I see that pixie smile, which always accompanied her teasing.

  Don’t I know.

  She used to say, What’s it like to be old, Pops? That’s one thing she’ll never know. What it’s like to be old. Growing old can be lonely, Taylor. It can be lonely. Until you show up and weave another dream for me.

  Taylor’s Diary

  November 20, 2000

  Today is the 20th anniversary of my elder sister Courtney’s birth. And on this day that she is reflecting on her past as well as her future, I have taken the day to make light of the present events which are occurring. I have come to this conclusion: This is a magnificent experience which is putting forth. So I can uncover a secret to truly appreciate the beauty around me. The seriousness of the situation is awakening me and allowing me to live this beautiful life the way it was intended to be lived. I can feel the love and amazement penetrating my soul. Although my physical body is manifested with disease, my spiritual body is only now being cleansed. All the impurities that have before weathered my soul are now being washed away by the purest rain. I believe that when this experience is complete I will be a more healthy and pure soul.

  Taylor’s Diary

  November 21, 2000

  I now take time out of the day to really experience and savor even the simplest things life has to offer. At this particular moment of the day I am enjoying every second of a James Taylor CD as I watch the most beautiful rays of sunlight dance across my pillow. Today is especially beautiful out; the air is crisp, the setting a beautiful thing for upcoming Thanksgiving and sunlight blanketing every tree and flower. Jeff stopped by before he left for North Carolina. It was just what I needed to brighten my day a little bit more. In all I am feeling peaceful and happy, but my tiredness has gotten the best of me so I must tend to that until next time.

  Chapter Five: Thanksgiving

  It was a tradition in the family that the extended clan met at Aunt Barbara’s in Melbourne for the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. For a number of years I attended these events until my wife released me on waivers, as they say in baseball, although I prefer the phrase, “My wife released me to my future.” They were lovely dinners and Barbara was always gracious, but after the divorce I didn’t make the trek.

  “How was Thanksgiving at Aunt Barbara’s,” I remember asking Taylor when she came through the front door after her last such dinner. I don’t recall how she replied to my question, but later I read in her diary.

  Filled with the comfort of chaos. Dysfunction ran abundant both in the car ride up and the actual Thanksgiving dinner. We are a family that puts the “fun” in dysfunction. It was a line Taylor often used and it implied a bit of obliviousness as well. She was actually much more concerned about another matter; she was more concerned about Jeff. That conversation I remember.

  Jeff the boyfriend. Always Jeff the boyfriend. A seventeen-year-old girl could be obsessed with her boyfriend and I remember how self-conscious Taylor was because of her cancer. Well, I was certainly glad Jeff wasn’t Erik, a previous beau. Now there was a loser. “What’s up?” I asked her.

  “Jeff’s acting weird,” she replied. “He left me on hold for at least ten minutes and hasn’t called me back since. I hung up and am debating whether to call him or not. But to call him would expose my weakness to him, wouldn’t it?”

  I didn’t say anything. I don’t think she wanted me to.

  I read in her diary her lament: And my hair is coming out in drastic amounts. I remember her adding that comment. That was so true. We had been warned about the side effects of the chemo and sure enough, clumps of hair were beginning to fall out of Taylor’s scalp. If it was unnerving to her father, I realized, it was terrifying to her. Taylor had a beautiful head of hair, worthy of a cover girl. To lose such a mark of beauty was devastating for a seventeen-year-old girl. She was surprisingly philosophical about it though. I remember reading an entry in her diary:

  Maybe losing my hair is absolutely essential for me to reach a higher level or understanding and acceptance in this lesson God is trying to teach me, she wrote. Maybe I must be stripped of external beauty in order to really create inner beauty. I must remember this every time I walk past a mirror.

  I think she wrote that to reassure herself. It was a form of acceptance I realized on rereading the passage; a spiritual transformation was beginning.

  A week after that diary entry, Taylor surprised me with a totally bald head. “I shaved my head, Dad,” I remember her saying, stating the obvious. “I have a beautiful head, don’t I?” she added, preening before a hand-held mirror.

  I agreed that she had a beautiful head as she mockingly preened in a mirror like a diva. Then she took my hand and playfully rubbed it across her skull and chuckled at my discomfort.

  She wrote in her diary: It’s kind of empowering and humbling at the same time. It is definitely a unique experience. I’m just going to make the best of it, that’s my decision. Jeff is wonderful as ever…

  So Jeff was out of her doghouse that day, although he would return to it now and then over the year. It was the mercurial feature of a teenage romance, on-again, off-again, on-again. I always thought if Shakespeare’s famous teenagers Romeo and Juliet hadn’t killed themselves they probably would have split sometime in the non-existent fourth act. I was a bit too cynical when it came to Jeff. He turned out to be a pretty good egg as I learned later from an entry in Taylor’s journal.

  I can’t help but think it’s too good to be true. I mean how can an attractive eighteen-year-old guy stay faithful and emotionally committed to a girl who constantly has some distressing situation or another? I don’t know if I should let it just happen. I have tried to give him an out on a few separate occasions but he won’t even hear of it. Yesterday, I went over to his house and I got a bit emotional about my impending baldness. He made a remark about how I would still be beautiful and a river of tears came flooding out. He knew exactly what to do and say to comfort me. Maybe he came into my life j
ust in time to help me through.

  Maybe he did Taylor. And he left shortly thereafter.

  Jeff would outlive Taylor, but only by a few months. In the spring of 2002 he was killed in a daylight automobile accident in North Carolina about two weeks after the 60 Minutes program aired. He never got a chance to live his dream and join the NASCAR circuit.

  * * *

  The chemotherapy caused Taylor’s long brown hair to fall out. First it was a few hairs, then it was a few strands and then it was clump after clump. It was only when she started losing clumps of her hair that she became despondent. Her hair, like so many teenage girls, was such a part of her. It was if her soul was being drained from her.

  With the hair loss came a loss of self-confidence, a feeling that how could her boyfriend still love her? It seemed that all throughout her illness Taylor was more concerned about Jeff’s love than her own life. Here is a passage from her diary.

  Taylor’s Diary

  December 4, 2000

  Today was a simple but pleasant one. Make that until the evening. Jeff was being a real shit and I felt the need to hang up on him. Needless to say I’ m hopeless so I called him back. I haven’t had my mind on the “cancer” lately. I’ve just been living my life as any other normal bald girl. It’s quite nice. I haven’t showed Jeff my head yet, although I think he’ll be really good about it. And that’s the true test really, to see if it’s real. I don’t know why I’m dreading it. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll see my bald head and be horrified outright or if not, even worse, he’ll pretend not to be bothered, but will never look at me the same again. I just wish that I would have some assurance, because that hurt would not heal easily.

  Chapter Six: Twilight on the Beach

  When she was younger, of middle school age, Taylor and I would sometimes visit the Hutchinson Island beach at the House of Refuge museum which was once a refuge for shipwrecked sailors off the coast of Florida as early as 1825. It’s craggy shore with ocean spraying over the rocks gave the House of Refuge Beach a hint of a northern seashore or perhaps an English shoreline worthy of a Bronte sister novel. Twilight was our favorite time and the House of Refuge Beach was Taylor’s favorite site on Hutchinson Island to feel inspired to write her poetry. She had written poetry since she was a little girl; I like to think in some ways that she was emulating me, although choosing her own medium of expression in poetry instead of prose. For fathers dream that their daughters carry on the family association with the muse as they would dream of such for their sons. In fact, there were a number of men in town who had hung up “& daughter” signs on their shingles. Still, I thought, if she were to be a writer in the future I would have to steer her away from the poet’s poverty toward the middle class muse of non-fiction feature writing. But back then, when she was eleven on a balmy October Florida evening, I sat next to her on the beach as she worked on a poem that she said would be different.