by Taylor Black
“I’m not looking forward to that, Dad,” she said.
“I know, and you need another MRI.”
I always thought she took the claustrophobic conditions of the MRI extremely well, but then Taylor had learned to accept things I don’t think I could have ever accepted.
“You know, everything’s been good lately, Pops. I am confident that I will beat this. It only wins if you let it win.” It had become her mantra. I knew she was her own best cheerleader, and she said some things aloud to give herself confidence. But then, I do as well. I suspect a great many people do.
And then she spoke about Otis’s mom doing some type of holistic healing that dealt with energy flow in one’s body. She was optimistic that it was having some salutary effects. We weren’t quite as desperate as the actor Steve McQueen had been, going to Mexico to take some promised wonder drug. There is always a charlatan ready to sell a desperate patient a cure for cancer; there always has been I think, but there was no cost involved in the treatment and it certainly could do no harm and might help her psyche at the very least.
“It is soothing and I have a feeling that it will have positive effects.” Taylor said at the time.
I asked her about her friends. The last time she had been in the hospital the visits from her friends had dropped off and I made the mistake of saying something about it and it had made her cry, so I never mentioned it again. The novelty of a friend’s illness wears off quickly for teenagers, I realized, and they slowly lessened their visits over time but when Taylor was out of the hospital she plugged into her network of peers. But she had written about it in her diary.
I haven’t seen much of anyone lately. Everybody’s into their boyfriends. Hopefully I’ll hang out with them soon. Karly and Gia went to Orlando without me. I have a feeling they want to move in together, just the two of them. Life is so short and there is no use letting things like that get to you. You just got to let things go.
“I’m going to start doing meditation everyday at the beach, Dad,” she said as we walked along the shore. “I had the most terrible dream about Jeff last night. It seemed so real, and I woke up and was uneasy for a couple hours.”
She alluded to some type of a car crash, as I recall now, which, in retrospect may have been prescient, but who is to say? We then talked about her upcoming eighteenth birthday. She would be an adult in the eyes of the law.
“Looking back my life was very different and promises never to be the same,” she said philosophically. “Well, Dad, you always said ‘change is constant.’” Her smile was wistful.
A few weeks later the tumor would return and everything that was going well would go the other way, but that night on the beach we had a chance to walk and talk and I got a chance to see my daughter as a young woman and not as a little girl. It wasn’t as scary as I had feared, as I suppose every father fears, when his daughter completes the journey from childhood into womanhood.
Taylor’s Diary
June 6, 2001
There is an indescribable emotion that forever haunts people who have lost someone they love.
It is something that cannot be understood until someone has experienced it personally. Let me just say I wouldn’t wish that hurt on anyone. And although they say time heals all wounds, this is the exception. This wound never healed. I went to Duke last week. It wasn’t really good news, but it wasn’t really bad news. I’m going to have to begin taking chemo pills awhile. They are 5 pills for 5 days out of the month. Supposedly these pills have very little side effects, if any. So maybe after months of baldness (and wigs) I can finally have some hair again. I’m extremely excited that this won’t interfere with school @ least for a while. I am ready to begin a new chapter in my life. I have finished Ch. 1“The Stuart Years.” I’m going to take a summer class w/Karly now that the stem cell is postponed. I need to get back in the groove of things.
The visit to Duke showed there was still a residue of tumor so Taylor wasn’t able to start the isolation and stem cell replacement which would have been end of the protocol. So, instead, the Duke doctors put her on a lighter form of chemo and told her to go off to college and live her life. Perhaps this should have been a harbinger, but we didn’t realize it.
Chapter Thirty-One: A Last Drive Through Valley Forge
My mother’s house in Wayne was located but a short drive from Valley Forge National Park, and on summer evenings I would chauffer my mother and my daughters over to the park to watch the deer romp across the pastures where once George Washington and his army had encamped through a terrible winter. I always thought that George would be surprised—and I hope pleased—that the fields on which his troops suffered were now populated in the summers by white collar workers on lunch breaks and couples canoodling beside their picnic blankets near the areas where the Revolutionary War soldiers nearly froze their breeches off.
Valley Forge was also a place where I took the girls for a bike ride, amused that they were winded by the small hills we pedaled up and down, for they had only ridden bicycles on the flat paths of Florida and, unlike northern kids, they were unaccustomed to inclines and didn’t know how to conserve their energy.
It was at Valley Forge as well, that I taught my daughters the delicate art of skipping stones across streams, impressing them with my uncanny ability to uncork a “triple skipper.” We would often stop by one meandering brook and toss our stones in the stream. The girls looked forward to this as a daily ritual when we were in town visiting Nana.
So on a trip with Taylor to see “Nana before she died” as Taylor requested, and what I really took to mean, in case I die, Taylor asked for a last ride through Valley Forge before we drove to the Philadelphia airport for our flight back to Florida. For Taylor, Valley Forge was a sanctuary, a reminder of all that was good about her childhood, when there were no such things as ports in one’s chest to deliver the chemotherapy, when hair was long and luxurious and every moment of summer vacation promised magic in the next breath, when the most important thing in the day was the possibility of a “triple skipper” across the stream with the covered wooden bridge.
I drove a back way into the park, up past the ceremonial arch, parking by the spring-fed water fountain that Taylor had always loved as a girl. The water was as cool and refreshing as it had always been, and Taylor stood beside the car, just looking away toward the soldier huts a few hundred yards in the distance.
“Do we have time to stop at the stream, Dad?” she asked.
I said that we had plenty of time. One of the side benefits of being a tad anal was that I was nearly always early for everything. While it was suggested a customer show up ninety minutes early for a flight, I might show up three hours before takeoff, so we had plenty of time to dawdle in the park before the flight.
I parked the rental car by the spot we had always parked, down the way from the covered bridge. The girls had always crossed a small pedestrian bridge which forded the stream but to our surprise, that bridge was no longer there.
“That’s not right,” Taylor said as we stood by the car, stunned that the pedestrian bridge was gone. “Things aren’t supposed to change here. This is frigging Valley Forge. That isn’t right, Dad.”
It was cruel. It was if the forces of nature had not only given Taylor a brain tumor but had taken away a revered memory of childhood.
“How do the kids get to the other side of the stream to throw their skipping stones?” she asked me.
I didn’t know, nor was I ready for her tears. Taylor began to cry. Cry for the lost pedestrian bridge, cry for the change of it all, cry for the broken memory of childhood, shattered like some porcelain doll by the awful hand of fate. Or maybe she was crying for herself and what she was going back to: the unknown future.
There at Valley Forge she had felt secure in the past until the present intervened and reminded her that change comes to all people and all things, even a national park.
We didn’t stay long after that and I drove on to the airport and we retur
ned to Florida.
Taylor’s Diary
June 14, 2001
I write to you from my Nana’s attic, one of the most comforting places in the world for me. I always thought, If there is one thing that is constant in this world it is my Nana’s house in Wayne, P.A. I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing constant in this crazy world. I have not seen Nana in 3 years, up until now. She has aged a lot in that time. She has a sweet woman that lives with her now and helps her out. She still knows what’s going on but sometimes she is a bit forgetful. Enough so that we have not told her about my disease. It would confuse and frighten her. Hell, it confuses and frightens me. So, needless to say I have spent the majority of my stay peaking around corners to see if I needed to put my wig back on before she saw me. But, it is a pilgrimage that I needed to take in light of the past year I’ve had I needed to find solace and retreat once more to my comfort zone. What I found here was change, which only reiterated the fact that I need to move forward and start anew. Having said that, our trip concludes on Sunday. And I leave for Orlando on Monday. I haven’t even packed yet, although I really don’t need to take anything but clothes just yet. I hope the girls can be convinced to break the lease early. Otherwise, I’ll be feeling like a guest until I get my own bedroom. And so begins “Ch. 2! The Disney Years.”
Chapter Thirty-Two: Oprah
One day Taylor introduced me to Oprah Winfrey and I became secretly addicted to the TV program The Oprah Winfrey Show. I suppose admitting my powerlessness about Oprah was a first step, but for years I was in denial; I was a man and I was watching Oprah. Except for my daughters, my secret remained buried in the closet. Like a great many addictions it began innocently enough: with experimentation.
Often after school at 4 p.m. Taylor would turn on the tube to the Empress of Empathy, pop some popcorn, and bring out the butter spray; it was the no-cal butter spray, the I Can’t Believe it’s not Butter spray in the yellow plastic bottle that she sprayed as liberally as the county trucks spraying for mosquitoes. Beside the popcorn bowl would be the ever present Diet Coke. One family member would later wonder if the soft drink contributed to Taylor’s brain tumor, but we discounted that theory.
One day Taylor asked me to join her and a bonding was begun: I watched The Oprah Winfrey Show with my daughter, a box of tissue, strategically placed on the coffee table between us. One never knew when Oprah would tug at one’s heartstrings with a segment about starving autistic disabled children from Appalachia who had become orphans due to a mine disaster in which their father died and their mother subsequently died a day later of grief associated with the loss of her husband. So a tissue box was always at the ready in our house.
As I said, Oprah addiction wasn’t the type of thing that a man easily admitted, but the programs were fascinating and later when Taylor was undergoing chemotherapy at St. Mary’s Hospital, I would sit in the chair beside her hospital bed and click on Oprah for her and for myself. When her sisters were with her in the hospital they would watch Oprah with her as well. One hour of someone else’s suffering could be strangely therapeutic to a young girl on chemotherapy. Look, just for today, someone else has it bad as well. Misery does indeed love company. Why do we rubberneck at highway accidents? Why do we slow down? Isn’t a part of us saying, “there but for the grace of God go I”?
For Taylor the power of Oprah’s program was truly remarkable. I rarely watch the program anymore; not that I’ve joined Oprah Anonymous or anything; my reason for watching the program wasn’t Oprah, it was Taylor and sharing time with her. With Taylor gone, well, so was my desire and my reason to watch the Queen of Talk Shows.
In retrospect, the programs all seem to blend in my mind except the ones where Oprah gave away this or that. I don’t believe Taylor was still alive when Tom Cruise did his famous couch hurdle, but for a couple of years we followed the issues and the dysfunction of many of the guests and even caught local attorney, Willie Gary, as he and his wife were introduced in Oprah’s audience. Gee, I knew a guy who was on Oprah’s show, I could say. Ironic I suppose that Willie Gary would also be featured on 60 Minutes as well as Taylor. Funny too, that the three people from Stuart who had been featured on 60 Minutes were people I knew. I even taught with Barbara Webb whose dentist injected her with the AIDS virus. Mrs. Webb made the “Stopwatch Show” as well.
Today Oprah is a short stop on an occasional remote control “channel surf.” Oh, once in a while, the Oprah addiction will have its way, and I’ll watch an entire episode, but missing is Taylor’s call of, “Hey, Dad, Oprah’s coming on.” Watching Oprah is not the same without Taylor. Sometimes after a few minutes of Oprah a lump comes to my throat that I think Oprah’s viewers would understand.
Taylor’s Diary
June 19, 2001
Well, I’m here. Thank God! I’m here! (Taylor was in Orlando for a community college class before the fall semester at the University of Central Florida). I need to have a fresh start in a fresh place. Put last year behind me. The only thing I’m missing is Jeffery. I am really missing him. Over the past year he had been my rock. He has helped me sooooo much,
Well, I started the chemo pills on Sunday night and so far I’ve had very little nausea. But last night I had pains in my stomach. This chemo is called Temodar. It has 5 vials, each filled w/3 pills, 2 white ones and a brown one. It seems I have to do 4 rounds or so (Depending upon how it works). Supposedly, this kind is not going to make me lose my hair. But, really, I gotta see it to believe it!! You know what I mean? I’m beginning to think I’m never going to get any hair back. I’ve been hairless for a nearly a year now. And although the novelty has definitely worn off I will say that everyone must have a bald head once in their lifetime. It is certainly a unique experience and one which cannot be explained properly except to say that it must be experienced @ some time or another.
I started my class today. It’s called Student Success. It’s supposed to teach us time management and study skills, some things I need to learn. I’m debating whether or not I’m going home this weekend. I want to see Jeff and I need to get a few more things to bring up here. But on the other hand I need to spend some time up here. I guess we’ll just see what happens in the next few days.
Chapter Thirty-Three: Blame It on the Brain Tumor
Obviously there is nothing humorous about a brain tumor right? One would think so, but for Taylor the brain tumor did have some amusing benefits; it became her catchall excuse for her mistakes, and even her misbehavior, and besides, her friends liked to hear the sloshing and thumping sounds in her head. One time I caught a few of them in line waiting their turn to hear the inner workings of Taylor’s noodle.
“Hey, Dad, want to hear my brain?” Taylor asked me after recovering from her first brain surgery. The surgeon had replaced the piece of skull he cut off to get to her brain, of course, but there was indeed a tell-tale slosh when she shook her noggin. “My friends think it’s neat,” she added. I could only listen to it once, and I was sorry I did. She could see the discomfort on my face and laughed at me.
“You shouldn’t laugh at your father, Taylor,” I said, though a thin smile gave me away.
So she laughed again.
Shortly thereafter, the brain tumor became a handy excuse for all of the dents on Tammy Tercel and the D in Geometry. Taylor was a regular Fraulein Fender-Bender with the broken back up lights and crumpled bumpers, and now she had the perfect excuse for her mini-accidents: the brain tumor. Certainly the brain tumor had a really big downside, but Taylor was an adolescent and one thing adolescents need as surely as air itself are excuses for their misbehavior. My dog ate my homework is obviously trite, but a brain tumor is a veritable gold mine for the excuse factory. A brain tumor evokes immediate sympathy: you poor thing, of course you back-ended me, what else could you do, you have a brain tumor. Pity, sympathy, all of these were possible upsides of a brain tumor. You poor thing, couldn’t master Geometry. Why you don’t know it yet, but you have a dormant brain tumor an
d someday it will give you the perfect angle you can use on your father to explain your deficiency in Geometry. It is too bad that Taylor didn’t live back with Socrates and Plato, because she came up with a Brain Tumor Philosophy.
“A brain tumor has an upside, Dad,” she informed me of her new epistemology. “It really gives me an excuse for a lot of things.”
It was an odd way to look at things, but then, so is stoicism. Taylor did have a sense of the absurd. In Martin Memorial a week before she died when she was waiting for a bed in the local Hospice Residence, Aunt Barbara was in the room with her when suddenly Taylor asked to use Barbara’s cellphone.
“Who you gonna call?” A surprised Barbara asked her.
And Taylor had brightened with a big smile as if fed a set up for a great punch line and replied, “Ghostbusters.”
No, she didn’t hum the theme to the movie, but there was a bit of irony in the comment as she had begun to see things in the hospital room that we couldn’t see. Was it the morphine, or was it something else? Albert Einstein’s last words were reported to be “now come the answers” and I suppose we only learn the answers when we check out of this place.
Now Taylor was not about to write “Brain Tumor the Musical,” and there were certainly more days of rain than sunshine for her, but a laugh could lift her spirits and get her through the next day.
The doctors suggested that Taylor had the brain tumor at birth. I was in the delivery room with Pam, as I had been for Courtney, a great Lamaze Coach whom Pam basically dismissed during a series of contractions that brought Taylor forth into the world not through any assistance of her “coach.”
The gas guy during the delivery made some waggish comment to me about being a “brute” to cause my wife’s discomfort, but he atoned for his bad humor by getting little Taylor’s lungs functioning correctly.
Was it there, I wonder now, right there in the delivery room, that Taylor had a brain tumor? The doctors’ theory was the tumor lay dormant to late adolescence and with Taylor’s changing body, it developed as well. If so, it might explain Taylor’s childhood klutziness, her two broken arms.