Taylor's Gift (17 page)

“What are you looking at?”

“There's a cross around the moon!”

I looked harder and there it was—a full moon with a radiating light coming from behind it. The brilliant beams of light formed the shape of a glowing
cross
.

“Ah,” I said.

“Grab a camera,” Tara said.

The kids were excited, Tara was excited, and I was too. The cross felt like a sign. I missed my daughter, I'd fought with my wife, and it hadn't been much of a birthday. Yet, God wanted to remind me of His love for me—for all of us—and He had decorated the moon to do it.

After we took pictures, I kissed Tara and told her I was going back outside. “I hope that's okay with you,” I said.

“Go,” she said. I knew it wasn't what she wanted, but she was willing to let me go. Besides, neither one of us had the energy required to be upset with the other. I went back to the fire pit, and with the moon watching over all of us, I felt free to enjoy myself. I did my best to lose myself in the moment. I talked, told stories, and laughed at other people's stories. Everyone had a great time, and it was nearly 2:00 a.m. before they all went home.

I helped the neighbor pull his fire pit around back before returning home. Tara and the kids had been sleeping for hours. I climbed in bed and wrapped my arms around my sleeping wife, and fell asleep remembering how good it had felt to have fun.

Soon after my birthday, someone introduced us to Randy and Pam Cope. They'd lost their son, Jantsen, to an undiagnosed heart condition when he was fifteen. They were the first people we knew who had also lost a child. They invited us to their home, and they quickly became friends, confidantes, and a source of inspiration to us.

At that first meeting, we were sitting on their couch when Pam said, “You were handpicked—chosen—for this burden.”

I could immediately see Tara didn't like that thought, but it aligned with my thinking.
Was there a purpose in Taylor's death? In our grief? Was this all, in some way, a part of God's plan?

A few visits later, Randy and I went outside for a walk to give the women some privacy. I told him how difficult it was to watch Tara crying all the time, unable to get out of bed.

“It's okay that you don't want to see her sadness,” Randy said. “And it's okay when she's sad and you're not. It's even fine to be mad at her because she's sad; just don't act on it. Don't do anything that would drive a wedge into your relationship.”

Pam and Randy gave us permission to grieve separately and differently. Randy taught me how to accept Tara's sadness and her need to sleep away the days. Pam told Tara it was okay if I wanted to laugh, get lost in my work, or go outside and hang out with friends. We each needed what we needed. We didn't have to like it, but we had to respect it.

Finally, someone had given us a plan for our grief—something we could follow. It was the best advice we'd ever been given.

It saved our marriage.

Tara

I hated waking up.

It was a few weeks after Taylor's funeral, but each time I woke up, it started all over again. Every day, I relived the horror that Taylor was gone.

As soon as the kids got off to school, I'd take an antianxiety pill, and it would knock me out for four hours. If I went back to bed by eight, I wouldn't wake up until noon. Someone would force me to eat lunch, and afterward I'd go back to bed. When the kids were home from school, I'd fight through the fog and exhaustion to do my best as a parent. But it was obvious to everyone—everyone but me—I wasn't doing it well.

One day, Beth Sunshine planned to stop by for a visit. Since she lived in Plano, a thirty-minute drive from us, it was a special treat. I hadn't seen her in a while, and I was looking forward to talking with her. Beth knew me better than probably anyone except Todd, and I wanted to share a few things and get her feedback.

As soon as she walked in the door, I hugged her. “I've got so much I need to talk about.”

Peyton was sitting in a chair coloring. When I led Beth past the family room, Peyton spoke up. “Mommy, come watch me color.”

“Baby, I'm going to talk to Aunt Beth right now,” I said.

“Please come see me color,” she protested. Her coloring book was spread open on her lap and crayons littered both arms of the chair.

“Sweetie, I'm going to talk to Aunt Beth. It's been a while since I've seen her.” I was already tearing up. I'd waited all day for Beth to get there, and I desperately needed her to listen while I unloaded.

I opened the back door to the patio, and Peyton said, “Mommy, you don't even see me.” She didn't look up or wait for my reaction. She just kept coloring.

I took a deep breath. Peyton was right; I hadn't been there for her.

I knew the dynamics in the house had shifted. Peyton and Ryan used to get along, but I'd come to realize it was because Taylor helped keep the peace. Without Taylor to stop the bickering, their squabbles rose to new levels—both kids had been sniping at each other and picking fights. They didn't have to tell me it was because they were afraid of losing another sibling; I understood. The spats were a way to protect themselves from another potential loss.

Other changes occurred too. The first few days they were home, they slept on the floor in our room. They were now afraid to sleep upstairs in their own bedrooms. When it became obvious they weren't going to leave, someone loaned us an air mattress. Now, our bedroom had become theirs. At night, they wouldn't even go to bed unless I went with them, which meant I had to go to bed around eight o'clock. While they would quickly fall asleep, I couldn't. If I attempted to leave, they would hear me and get upset. They wanted me there beside them. So I lay on the bed, with them next to me on the floor, and prayed. Then I would text on my phone as I counted down the minutes until I could take my Ambien.

Standing behind her chair, I watched as Peyton put down one crayon and chose another. During the day, everyone who came to
the house wanted a piece of me and a piece of Todd. Ryan and Peyton got pushed to the side.
I've got to be present for her
, I thought.
She's fearful of losing me too.
I glanced at Beth, and she motioned for me to go talk to Peyton. I knelt down in front of my daughter's chair, so I could look her square in the eye and really see her. “What do you want me to do, Peyton?”

“I want you to watch me color,” she said. Then she quickly changed her mind. “Will you take me to the park?”

The park?
I didn't feel like going to the park. The short walk would require more energy than I was capable of, but what choice did I have?

“I'll wait here,” Beth said.

I grabbed a hat and Peyton's hand, and we walked to the park.

It was the longest walk of my life.

She talked the entire way. I didn't say two words. She was ebullient, skipping and tugging on my arm, trying to get me to bounce along with her. All I could manage was to shuffle alongside her. I had concrete blocks for feet and a cement cape wrapped around my shoulders. Each step was slow and painful.

When we neared the park and I caught a glimpse of the distant duck pond, I knew I'd blown it. “I didn't bring any bread,” I said. “I'm sorry, I forgot.”

“Oh, Mommy!” Peyton said. “That's the reason we came!”

Every time we went to the park, we went to feed the ducks and we always took bread. “I'm so sorry, baby. As soon as we get there, I'll just call home and have someone bring it.” I knew I couldn't make it home and back to the park again in the same day, let alone the same hour. Someone would have to help me out.

I mentally kicked myself for being so stupid. Nothing seemed right in my life. My memory was screwed up and my concept of time was completely missing. Even the simplest habits in my life—like bringing bread to the park—were messed up.

We walked up the path to the pond, and Peyton let go of my hand and skipped on ahead. I suddenly stopped short. Peyton
chatted away about nothing, until she noticed that I'd stopped. She turned back to see why I'd stopped.

“What?” she asked when she saw my face.

“Look!” I said, pointing to an area just off the sidewalk.

There in the grass, someone had mowed a perfect cross, and the cross was littered with bread crumbs. They weren't mowed in and they weren't dirty; to my amazement, they had been freshly sprinkled over the grass cross. To me, it was duck manna from heaven. Tears welled in my eyes as Peyton and I picked up handfuls of the fresh crumbs.
Someone had brought bread crumbs.
That someone had left a trail of bread crumbs to the cross. It was a reminder for me that, in the midst of my mess and my pain,
Someone
saw me and loved me.

My brother Bill's wife, Sandi, was at the house one day helping me sort through a pile of cards we'd received. We were busy opening hundreds of envelopes and sorting them into piles when Sandi stopped and said, “Is this a joke?”

“What are you talking about?”

She handed me a card that didn't look anything like the muted pastel cards with flowers and flowing Scriptures that we'd been opening for the past twenty minutes. This one was square shaped and bright yellow. Dancing girls were lined up on the front. I opened the card and read, “Have you planted your tomato plant? Waiting for your call, so you can get your ten points.”

I looked at Sandi. “I have no idea what this is. Who is it from? I don't get it.” The envelopes had already been separated from the cards, and there was no way to match it. The next day Sandi came back and we started again. As we neared the bottom of the pile, I opened a card from Angie. It wasn't a sympathy card. It was the kind of card you send a good friend when you share an inside joke about something stupid. But Angie and I weren't that close. Her daughter had played volleyball with Taylor, so we saw each other a lot. We were friendly, but we weren't good friends.

I looked at the card in my hand. Under the preprinted message, she'd included a handwritten note: “Plant a tomato plant, call me, and you'll get ten points.”

“I know who sent that card you found yesterday,” I said to Sandi. “Apparently, it was the second one. Here's the first,” I said, handing it to her.

Sandi looked baffled. “I still don't get it,” she said after reading it.

“I think she's trying to get me to do stuff, to get over my sadness,” I said. “And it kind of ticks me off. Who does she think she is?”

Randy and Pam Cope were becoming good friends. They had given us lots of solid advice, and I had great respect for Pam. Though I didn't like her saying we'd been “handpicked” for this, I liked
her.
She was the only person I knew who'd experienced what I was going through.

Pam started coming by the house, and if she thought I needed to talk, she'd ask me to take a car ride with her. Sometimes, we'd go to the park and she'd pull into a parking space. She'd turn off the car, look directly at me, and say, “Okay, talk to me.” I appreciated our time together because I knew she would understand things no one else did. The next time we were alone in her car, I told her about the cards I'd gotten from Angie.

“I got another one yesterday,” I said, fuming. “It said, ‘Have you planted your tomato plant yet? Waiting for ten points. Your next challenge is to get a pedicure. If you do that, you'll get twenty points.'” I pounded my fists onto my pajama-clad thighs and said, “Who does she think she is? How dare she challenge me!”

Pam listened with a smirk on her face and then tried to stifle a giggle. When I exploded, she couldn't hold it back any longer, and she roared with laughter. When she got hold of herself, she simply said, “What do you know? That's really creative!”

I was dumbfounded by her response. She was supposed to know better than anyone why that was so thoughtless. “I am not planting
any stupid tomatoes, Pam! I'm not. I'm constantly in my pajamas. I'm barely out of bed. I'm not doing that.”

A few days later, I was sitting on the back porch when Pam walked out with a large green pot. Inside was a bag of soil, a watering can, fertilizer, and a hand tool. “C'mon,” she said, handing me the trowel, “we're planting this darn tomato plant.”

Later, I texted Angie and said, “Got ten points.”

And that was the beginning. Over the next few months, lots of cards followed—at least one a week. Angie encouraged me to earn points for taking showers and getting a pedicure, and she even gave me a book on sex and romance, with the opportunity to earn bonus points.

Some of her challenges were easy, while others were hard and I'd have to work up to them. Her challenge for the first week of May was to go to a museum. I still wasn't showering, and I couldn't control my sobbing. How was I supposed to go to a museum? Before I could figure it out, another card arrived with a new challenge to go downtown, take a ride on the trolley, and stop at Sprinkles Cupcakes. The thought was entirely overwhelming. But it coincided with another overwhelming day.

I handed the card to Todd and said, “Here's what I want to do for Mother's Day.” I knew the day would be hard, and I knew I needed to spend it with Ryan and Peyton doing something that wouldn't flood me with memories of past Mother's Days. So that's what I did on my first Mother's Day without Taylor. I visited a museum with my family, we rode a trolley, we ate Sprinkles Cupcakes, and I earned thirty more points.

I never knew what the points were for; it could have been an ice cream cone for all I knew. But the challenges got me moving again and they helped me find my smile.

I was sitting in my usual spot in my chair in the backyard, a blanket wrapped around my shoulders, staring off vacantly into the
distance, when my friend Gayle walked out of the house. She handed me a box. I opened the gift, expecting it to be a blanket or maybe a book. I'd gotten a lot of those recently. But instead, there was a plate inside. On the plate was hand-painted Taylor's “I Am” poem
.