by Taylor Black
She got her grandmother some weed and the old lady smoked it, Pops. Kind of cool I thought.
Remember those last classes at UCF? We came back from Duke in mid-October and you were staying with your grandmother Virginia in Melbourne.
She made the most beautiful dolls. She was truly an artist, Pops. She even gave me one.
You couldn’t drive at the time; it wasn’t safe as we were afraid of a possible seizure. So I drove up from Stuart and picked you up and then drove you to Orlando for your classes.
Political science class. I was heavy on the steroids and eating like a horse.
I remember hanging out in the library while you were in class, trying to find old articles I wrote for the Miami Herald when I still thought I was going to be the next Ernest Hemingway. You had never read those family friendly stories I cranked out, funny little tales of life with your mother when she played Lucy to my Ricky, the days when our marriage actually worked, when we finished each other’s sentences. But UCF didn’t have the Herald on microfilm and the pieces were too old to have been put on the internet archives.
You found a couple of magazine articles, Pops. The Santa Claus one. I really liked that one. How you and Mom hired a Rent-a-Santa when we were little. Face it, Pops; the red head gave you a lot of material for articles. There can be a gold mine in dysfunction.
She could put the “zip” in Zippidy do-dah, alright. I remember the ride back to Melbourne that night, Taylor, and I remember we taped our conversation.
For our diaries, Pops. We were going to publish our diaries when I beat cancer. It was going to be a best seller and Sally Field would play mom in the movie version and Julia Roberts would play the twins because they look just like her.
I remember you working on the casting for the movie. I wanted to be played by Robert Redford.
That was amusing, Pops. Robert Redford as you. If he gained forty pounds.
Cruel, that’s cruel. But that night on the ride back from UCF you said something interesting.
You mean when I spoke of cancer patients and how we thought? I can quote myself:
“This is something big. I don’t know. Something that’s indescribable. It’s already been life altering. It’s like a different level of consciousness we’re on than everyone else. A more pure life. Real. It’s not just stuff—I can’t exactly put my finger on it.”
The concept of facing death was what it was, Taylor. The idea was with mortality staring you in the face you didn’t have time to blink.
It was a spiritual awakening, Pops, that’s what it is and you have that in your program as well. Remember in the hospital when I said, “there’s a reason for all of this, Pops. I just hope it’s grand?”
Yes, you knew you were dying at that point in time. You were turning it over to God. You know, your mother doesn’t believe you ever said that.
That’s too bad. I did.
It was grand, Taylor. It was grand.
I like to think so. Every life is grand in its own way.
We played the Beatles tape that night in the car and it reminded you of all the trips on the interstate to Nana’s.
The Beatles One album. Courtney and I bought you that for Father’s Day, Pops. All their number one hits. And I talked about how much I had eaten that day because of the steroids. A bagel with crème cheese and two blueberry muffins, a few bananas and a cup of pudding for breakfast. Then potato chips for snack. Then lunch of clam chowder, shrimp salad, lots of bread and presidential chocolate cake. Then two six inch turkey subs, a super-size fry and a milk shake. I was due to have another operation a few weeks later at Duke to put in the Rickham Reservoir in my head and I was going to be under general anesthesia, therefore it would be impossible for me to eat for a week, so I packed on extra pounds. That was the reason I looked like a heifer.
You always referred to yourself as a heifer.
I felt like one. Big as a cow because of the steroids. Of course I don’t have a weight problem now. Daydreams don’t need to go to Jenny Craig.
No they don’t, Taylor. No, they don’t.
Taylor’s Diary
October 16, 2001
Sleep and peace please come to me, I beg of you just this.
Erase my memory with your unconscious kiss.
Take me in your arms, let thoughts escape my head,
Keep away all harm and any tears I’ve shed.
Let me now just rest for a moment more,
Release me from the stress that stands beside my door.
Rock me soft and gently through the darkest hours of night
Awaken me to morning’s healing light.
Chapter Forty-Six: One Day in Anatomy Class
Going through some things in Taylor’s old bedroom, I came across a thank-you card addressed to Taylor and signed by the students in the Anatomy and Physiology class at South Fork High School. Some of the students, the girls of course, wrote little notes of appreciation. The boys, characteristically, merely signed their names.
It was August of 2001 and South Fork had begun its semester a few weeks ahead of the college opening and Taylor had some time on her hands. I can’t remember whose idea it was but one morning Taylor came to school with a number of brain scans to show the students what a brain tumor looked like on a CT scan.
She dropped by my portable classroom to say hello, but I couldn’t leave to hear her speak as I had a class at the same hour as Anatomy and Physiology. The science teacher, Ms. Schumacher, was a veteran, no-nonsense teacher of the old school with thirty years of experience in the classroom and yet that day she was moved by Taylor.
I was good, Pops. The kids were really interested.
Many of them showed up in my later classes that day and told me how amazing you were.
I was, Pops. I was. I was really “on” that day. It was one of my good days.
Stop smiling. You are not supposed to have an ego in the afterlife. Don’t laugh at your father, that’s not polite. As I was saying the kids were amazed by your positive attitude more than the brain scans.
They found them interesting though, Pops. I taught them how to read a scan and what the doctors looked for. I told them of my brain operation at Duke and how I was awake about half of the time. I think by that time the Discovery Channel had already done a show on brain tumors where the patient was awake. The kids were really interested, more than I was when I was in high school.
Oh, like you hadn’t graduated from high school only three months before that?
I don’t know, Pops, it was odd. I felt so much older than the kids. They were juniors in high school, only two years younger, but I felt much older than they were. I felt older than kids my own age, come to think of it.
The last year was a maturation I couldn’t believe.
That was the good part.
The students in that class were upset three months later when you died.
Not as much as I was, Pops.
Don’t smile like that. That wasn’t funny.
Why not smile, Pops; I’m in a better place. There’s no homework here. I don’t have to clean my room or worry about what I’m going to wear for a date. Or be concerned that I have overdrawn my checking account.
Some of the students from that class showed up at the funeral home for the service we had there, the night before your funeral.
I’m glad you had a black priest, Pops.
Your mom’s the Catholic, not me. It was her pick.
Nice crowd though. Lots of students. The death of a child really packs them in, doesn’t it?
Your grandfather was president of an international labor union but you had more people show up for your funeral than showed up for his.
That’s what he told me. He wasn’t jealous though. He was happy you turned out to be a teacher, Pops. That’s what he wanted to be until the Great Depression cost him his football scholarship and forced him to drop out of college.
There it is, football again. I’ve got to let it go. I believe the Anatomy teacher tap
ed the 60 Minutes program and showed it to the students.
That would complete the circle, Pops. For some of those kids, I might have been the first person they met who actually died. I would think that was a pretty powerful lesson, wouldn’t you?
Yes, yes I would, Taylor.
Then it was worth it.
Taylor’s Diary
October 17, 2001
I want to cry a thousand tears, but my eyes won’t muster one,
I want to drown my fears and wash away the sun.
I want it all to cease, the breathing, hurt and pain.
I need to have release from the pounding of the rain.
I want to scream at decibels my voice could never go,
I must have someone come and take away this low.
Chapter Forty-Seven: Amish Country
Like many single men, I know I’m not much of a housekeeper. Dust bunnies have hutches in my house and piles of rejected novels clutter the coffee and end tables, constantly reminding me of my literary failings. But on occasion, when I’m expecting company of the opposite gender, I put my hand to housecleaning, especially dusting off the pictures around the house.
One day, expecting company, I was dusting the pictures and removed one of my favorites from its spot on my bedroom wall and wiped its glass covering: Courtney and Taylor were posing in a cornfield, sticking their heads between the corn stalks, smiling at the camera. It reminded me of Nana and Amish Country.
Nana loved Amish Country, Pops. But we loved it that you split your pants.
That’s right. Boy that was embarrassing. It was a good thing I was wearing underwear and I wasn’t going commando.
That’s Joey from Friends, Pops. You stole that.
Yes I did. We had just ridden the old railroad at East Stroudsburg and when I detrained I split my pants. I had to stop and get another pair.
It’s amazing that the highlight of that trip was split pants. Nana got sort of nostalgic in the one room Amish school house.
She taught in one in Illinois in the 1930s. For two years I think it was. Until she married my father.
And lost her job.
Yes, she liked to tell that story. That Illinois county that hired her dismissed women teachers when they married. Only spinsters were allowed to teach.
I guess I was a spinster, wasn’t I?
You were eighteen. Spinsters didn’t become spinsters until their twenties in the old days.
There are so many negative names for women, Pops. Spinster is one. Old maid is another. Single men are merely bachelors. It’s not fair.
No it isn’t.
Nana really liked to teach, Pops. She talked about it so often and she only taught for two years. That was really a shame that she couldn’t teach because she got married. Her whole generation was subservient to their husbands.
Yes, that’s the way it was, Taylor. Nana was a great grandmother wasn’t she?
I loved going to see her, Pops. She spoiled me rotten. We did so many day trips with you and her. We did the Amish country three times and you only split your pants once.
I’m glad you remembered more than that.
I always liked the cornfield photo, Pops.
I nearly gave that to you when you went off to college, Taylor, but I thought it would be corny to do so.
Ha ha, Pops.
No one laughs at my puns any more, Taylor.
Courtney never cared for them. Only I did. So did Karly Walker. She loved your puns, Pops.
She’s teaching in St. Petersburg.
No, she’s in California now, we chat.
Tracey Jordan in Colorado saw you in her bedroom one night.
I think I frightened her. First time. You know Nana’s house reminded me of something Maya Angelou once wrote.
You loved Maya Angelou.
Uh huh, she wrote, “The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” That was Nana’s for me.
I know, Taylor. Give her my love.
I will, Pops. I will.
Taylor’s Diary
October 19, 2001
I cannot breathe. The more I try the more I gasp. HELP!
DOES ANYONE SEE ME HERE?
DOES ANYONE SEE ME CHOKING?
FREE ME! GIVE ME AIR. HELP ME. JUST A BREATH!
JUST ONE LIFE SUSTAINING FORCE! GASP
BLACKNESS!
Chapter Forty-Eight: Death Be Not Proud
Back in the late 1940s, journalist John Gunther wrote a book about his son Johnny’s fight with brain cancer. The book, entitled Death Be Not Proud, has never been out of print. It is a timeless classic, and although John Gunther wrote several best sellers such as Inside the U.S.A and Inside Europe, his biography of his son is the one which has stood the test of time. I reread it recently and it took me back to Taylor’s last days and to her last journal entries.
And as it turned out, Courtney was in Orlando as she had snuck away from the University of Florida to fly to Las Vegas to catch a Stevie Nicks concert. Your daughters were always surprising you, Pops. Read from my journal, Pops, the October 28, 2001 entry. It was after your last trip with me to Duke, from my point of view:
Taylor’s Diary
October 28, 2001
Well I haven’t kept up with writing because my life was going pretty smoothly up until three weeks ago. Then I started to get headaches and get nauseous one day, and I called Dr. Nick and he made me stay in the hospital overnight and they gave me an MRI and discovered the cancer leaking down into the CSF (cerebral spinal fluid). I had to get a spinal tap. That was NOT FUN! And now I am up at Duke, doing a new treatment. I just got something called a Rickham Reservoir. This will act kind of as a port. They will administer a new “test” chemo through that and it will go everywhere the cancer cells are going. Doctors Friedman (Henry and Alan) gave me an analogy that we are in the third quarter and are down by 12. They are all about basketball here and 12 points aren’t that much. But it’s definitely a B-I-T-C-H. I keep wondering if I will eventually die from this. I’m gonna try as hard as I can but what if I don’t have it in me? I’m trying to muster up every piece of strength and energy I have right now. I start treatment on Tuesday. It is apparently a four hour procedure so I’d better bring a book. I am going to keep you updated along with my 5 million relatives who are driving me a very short trip to crazy. Until then.
Yes, their slogan was “At Duke there is hope.” For a while after everything that occurred, I thought it was, “At Duke there is hype.” As if we were promised a cure that never came, that sort of thing. I’m just reading from your own diary from November 12, 2001.
That was my last diary entry, Pops. There wasn’t really much to write after that, was there?
No, I guess not.
Taylor’s Last Diary Entry
November 12, 2001
Well, we have a minor setback. This new chemo is not as effective as we would have hoped, so we have to switch to a different one. Let’s keep our fingers crossed TIGHT!
I think it upset the family more than me! Of course I was extremely bummed out, but what are you gonna do? Really what can you do? The most precious gift is life and working for it will only make the reward that much sweeter in the end. I truly am a blessed individual in so many fantastic ways. I need to always remember my infinite blessings in the time that the “oh, poor me syndrome” overwhelms me. It’s a long hard road but the pot at the end of the rainbow is more than all that the leprechauns in all the world could ever have hoped 4!
THANK YOU, LORD, FOR ALL THE BEAUTY AND ALL THE SPLENDOR. THANK YOU LORD FOR BREATH AND FOR
Life!
You knew then, didn’t you?
No, I only suspected, Pops. I still had hope. I thought Henry might pull some miracle cure at the last minute. I really did feel that way until I left Duke and came back to Stuart. They teach you about acceptance in your program, Pops. You should know. Acceptance can come in stages. At least it did for me. It was incremental.
/> You just wanted to be home in the end, didn’t you?
In the end there was nothing the chemo could do for me except make me sick, and there really wasn’t anything Duke could do for me either. As you would say, it wasn’t in the cards. I’m glad I didn’t go in the hospital though, Pops, and I’m glad you and mom got me to the hospice residence. You wondered if I could hear you when I was sedated at the residence? I heard you and I heard Mom. I heard Courtney and my siblings. I heard all the voices even though I could no longer talk. It was as if I were eavesdropping on life, as if I wasn’t really a part of it any more, just a member of some audience and then the curtain came down.
That’s what the Hospice folks told us that at the end the dying hear the voices of their loves ones.
Your world constricts when you are dying, Pops, it gets smaller. At the end I wanted to be home. It was a reversal. When you are little you want to cross the street, then when you are older you ride a bike a half mile and your world expands. Then you learn to drive a car and the world seems enormous. But for me, everything reversed in the end, my world grew smaller every day until it was confined to one bed in the bedroom at the Hospice residence with all my family members circled around me, loving me, but incapable of preventing the inevitable. It reminded me of the ending of a Dickens character, the family gathered around at the end. I never really got into Dickens though.
You sort of snuck away on us, Taylor.
I left when everyone was asleep, Pops. That seemed the most appropriate time. Everyone who mattered had said goodbye. Pick up my volume of Emily Dickinson, Pops, you know the poem. Read it, Pops. Read the first verse.
“Because I could not stop for Death;
He kindly stopped for me;
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.”
* * *
I found the origin of John Gunther’s title for his memoir of his son.