Taylor's Gift (23 page)

“I can't thank you enough,” Jeff said, his voice faltering. “Thank you so much. I feel bad for Tara and for you. It's very unfortunate that one had to pass for one to live, but I want you to know how thankful I am that Taylor's life saved mine.”

He was so appreciative; it was as if he couldn't thank us enough.

We moved to the backyard and sat on the patio. Jeff was a humble guy and down-to-earth. I watched as Tara engaged him
in conversation, asking questions and answering his. Sure, a few tears emerged, but watching her converse felt like I was getting my wife back.

Jeff was open and eager to share his life with us. We learned he had been a diabetic for nearly forty years, but after Taylor's pancreas and kidney saved his life, he was completely cured of the disease.

“My sugars used to be between four and five hundred. My machine doesn't go any higher than five hundred, so who knows how high they were,” Jeff said. “But now they're always between 72 and 98.” With Taylor's pancreas, he no longer had to test his blood sugar or take insulin. “I gave my insulin away to a family who is struggling financially,” Jeff said. “They have a daughter with diabetes and couldn't afford her medication.”

Vanessa talked about how much their lives had changed. “Before the transplant, he could barely make it up and down the stairs. He slept a lot. I used to worry about him all the time.” She mentioned some of his scarier experiences. “He would get so stubborn, and he refused to eat. But now it doesn't matter; he doesn't have to eat breakfast if he doesn't want to. I can go to work and not worry.”

“Now, I have a normal day-to-day routine without having to worry about being tied down by my disease,” Jeff said. “And Vanessa can have a normal life because she doesn't have to take care of me all the time.”

It was easy to see the strain that Jeff's illness had taken on the whole family, and how different everything was now. It had been a long time since any of them had had a normal life.

Vanessa told us they noticed certain changes in Jeff right away. “He always refused dessert,” she said, “but the first time they brought him a meal tray in the hospital, he went straight for the dessert. Skipped the meat and the side dish, didn't touch the fruit—he went straight for the cheesecake. He tore it up in, like, two seconds. He just downed the entire slice. It was amazing since he's never eaten sweets.”

Tara burst into tears and started to sob. I tried to wipe my own tears away with the back of my hand.

Vanessa stopped talking, and I could see her looking first at Brooke and then at Jeff. Everyone was silent; she had no idea what just happened. “Are you okay?” she asked Tara tenderly.

Tara got a hold of herself, and through her tears she said, “Cheesecake was one of Taylor's favorite desserts.”

Someone handed her a tissue, and I put my arm around her. I wasn't sure what would happen next, but when she looked up at me I could see her eyes glistening. This was the connection she'd been hoping for. The cheesecake made it real for her.

Though he'd had the surgery only three months earlier, and he wouldn't be able to go back to his job, Jeff was already finding volunteer work to keep himself busy and he was driving again. “You've given me a new lease on life, and my wife can now have a life without constant worry,” he said.

Jeff was a man of few words, but he made them count. When he talked about the day the medical team came to pick up the dialysis equipment, he simply said, “I was glad to see it go.”

It was obvious how thankful he was for the gift he'd been given and how drastically it had changed his life. “I'm not only living for me and my family, I'm living for your daughter,” he said.

Tara leaned back in her chair and relaxed a bit. I knew that was exactly what she needed to hear. And I needed it too. Jeff would take care of Taylor's organs, and the gift had transformed his life. But watching Tara as she hung on his every word, I realized it was also transforming her in some way.

Tara told them about the dress she'd found the day before, and we both told stories about Taylor. As we talked, I was reminded of the first time Tara had taken her eyes off Taylor when she was only two or three. They were in a small store, so Tara knew she hadn't gone far, but the fact that Taylor wasn't in sight worried her until she found Taylor one aisle over playing with the toys. When Tara picked Taylor up, it wasn't with excitement or joy but more of a
sense of relief, like,
Whew, now I can see she's okay
. That's what I saw in Tara as she spoke with Jeff. I saw a mom who knew her daughter would be okay.

Soon it was time to say goodbye. We were spent, and we knew they had to be too. We hugged and promised to stay in touch. Jeff continued to thank us, but finally I interrupted him and said, “I want to thank
you
. Thank you and your family, especially Brooke, for being willing to reach out and connect with us. You don't know how much this has helped us.”

Once back in the car, we didn't even have to say anything. We knew Jeff would take care of Taylor. It was a joyous feeling to know that someone was not only living, but thriving, because of Taylor's gift.

Of course.

Taylor took care of people. That's what she did. She took care of Ryan and Peyton, she took care of her friends, and now she was caring for strangers who—through her gift—were part of our family. In the last few months, I'd heard many stories of Taylor's caretaking that I'd never heard before. Taylor wasn't the kind to come home and tell us the thoughtful things she had done, so each time someone told us a new story of her taking care of someone else—like the girl at the garden dedication whose mom had died—it was a gift to us.

Now we had gotten to hear another story, that of a man and his family, and how Taylor was caring for them from the inside out.

As our plane lifted into the skies above Denver, I noticed that Tara didn't have a blanket wrapped around her this time. Instead she sat erect, calmly reading a magazine. I reached across the armrest and took her hand.

“You know what?” I said. “We were given the
privilege
of organ donation. It wasn't just a decision,
it was a privilege
.”

Her smile was all the confirmation I needed that things were going to be okay.

Tara

“Todd, there must be at least a hundred people here!” I said. We had just arrived in our friend's backyard for the first official event of the Taylor's Gift Foundation, and I was awed by the turnout.

“It's happening, isn't it?” Todd asked, as he squeezed my hand.

Only hours before we had met the Kartus family in Denver, and now we were back in Dallas in the backyard of our dear friends Pete and Pauline Stein. The place was filled with friends, family, local business leaders, former co-workers, and community members who just wanted to support and encourage us. I was overwhelmed and nervous. Being around people I knew was much harder than talking to people we'd just met.

“How was the meeting with Taylor's organ recipient?” It was the first question I heard that night, and it was asked over and over again in various forms. “Did it bring you peace?” some asked. I knew what they meant. What they meant was, “Did meeting him fix you? Make you all better? Help you move on?”

The thought of having to carry on small talk, or worse yet talk about losing Taylor, with all these people made me want to ditch my shoes and run home. Instead, I prayed.

I wasn't sure how to answer their questions. It was still so new. We'd just stepped off the plane a couple of hours before, and I hadn't had enough time to process everything. Our experience with the Kartus family felt so intimate that I wasn't sure I wanted to talk about it. Even if I did, how could I explain what I was feeling?

I knew why even the best-intentioned asked me those questions. What else did I have to talk about? For the past four months all I had done was sleep and stare into space. That doesn't make for good party conversation. Fortunately, early in the night I found a topic I was happy to dwell on. Someone complimented my dress. I told them the story and then twisted my arm around to pull the tag out of the back to show them.

“Look at this tag,” I'd say.

“Wow! Look at this!” they'd say, pulling another friend over. “You've got to hear the story about her dress! Tara, tell it.”

For the rest of the night, I talked about finding the dress. It became my protection and insulation. It gave me something to talk about and another way to marvel at God's goodness without having to mention Taylor or the accident. Finding the dress was a blessing, and being able to talk about it at the party was a double blessing. I was grateful for both. In a way, I felt like Taylor was protecting me.

It was a full evening with dinner, an auction, and a concert. Todd made a short presentation and talked about the foundation's goals. He introduced the advisory board, thanking them for assisting in the launch of the foundation. He told them about Jeff Kartus and his family, and how dramatically different their lives were because of Taylor's gift. “Imagine how many more lives could be saved if we just got more people to register,” Todd said.

He concluded by saying, “Meeting the Kartus family brought me a great deal of joy. It was a tangible example of why the work we're doing with Taylor's Gift is important and worth our sacrifices.”

As people applauded, I outwardly joined in. But inside, I was thinking how different Todd and I were. While I loved meeting the Kartus family, it didn't bring me
jo
y, and it didn't bring me
peace
.
Those things left my life when Taylor died. I suspected they'd never come back to me in the same way.

But meeting the Kartuses did do one thing for me—it gave me strength.

Strength to get up in the morning.

By late June, I found my mornings were getting a little easier. Although I didn't have to be anywhere in particular, I started setting the alarm on my phone and getting up when it went off. “When you get out of bed, make it,” my counselor, Judy, said one day. “If you don't, it just calls you to get back in.” She was right. So I started to make my bed. During the summer, the kids wanted to sleep in. So on a typical morning, Todd and I would have a couple hours by ourselves before they got up. He'd be out on the porch reading his Bible, and I'd just sit with him. Though we found ways to bond, we were still grieving very differently.

Todd liked to sit in Taylor's room; I didn't even want to see it. It made me anxious to even think about crossing the threshold. But I did like visiting her grave. I would go there almost every day, and sometimes I'd stay for hours. The grave had a temporary marker with only her name on it. I wouldn't even allow them to add the dates. Since the grave itself was so important to me, I wanted to be the one to pick out the headstone. But I couldn't. It wasn't that I was being stubborn; I just couldn't physically make myself describe my child in ten words or less.

It seemed so final.

Taylor's grave, like our home, had become another place for people to drop off signs of their love. People left trinkets—stuffed animals or other knickknacks. Sometimes they would decorate her grave with seasonal signs and streamers. At Easter someone left a flowered cross. My friend Beth Rathe would come out each week and exchange the old flowers for something fresh. I loved seeing flowers in red and black, the East Middle School colors, in Taylor
blue and purple, or in red, white, and blue for July. It made me feel good—like people hadn't forgotten Taylor. That was important to me. One of my biggest fears was that people would forget her.

I kept a pillow and a blanket in the car, and on a typical day I would spread the blanket on the shadiest side of her grave, kick off my shoes, and lie down next to her. I'd talk to her, and I would pray.

Sometimes, I'd listen to music on my iPhone, placing one ear bud in my ear and the other on her. I almost always had a hand on her. I liked listening to Steven Curtis Chapman's
Beauty Will Rise
album. It was an album of songs dedicated to and inspired by his daughter Maria, who died in a tragic car accident. The song “SEE” was especially meaningful. It was a description of heaven as if the person were giving a tour to someone who hadn't yet been there. I would play it repeatedly and think of Taylor singing the lyrics. Another song, “Just Have to Wait,” was about how I would have to wait to see her again; I cried every time I listened to that one.

One day, while sitting at her grave, I had a major pity party for myself. This wasn't how my life was supposed to turn out. I was mad and frustrated. About that time, I looked up and saw a perfect heart-shaped cloud resting in the clear, blue sky. It felt as if Taylor were reaching out to me—almost like she'd done with the blue dress. I know a lot of people believe that it isn't possible for someone on the other side to reach out, but I saw too many signs of her presence to believe that. Were the signs from her? Were they from God? It didn't really matter. They comforted me and helped me feel connected to both God and Taylor. Moments like that gave me strength to continue moving forward. Sometimes I called these signs “Taylor kisses.” I would write about them in my journal, or I'd write letters in my journal to her.

Often I read while I was at her gravesite. My favorite book at that time was
Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow
by Nancy Guthrie. I would read that book only while I was with Taylor.

I tried to visit Taylor only when Peyton and Ryan weren't home. During the summer, they'd get an invitation to play at a friend's
house, and I'd drop them off before heading to the cemetery. Sometimes the time to pick them up came too soon. I'd text various moms and ask if the kids could please stay and play a little longer. “I need some time,” I'd text. “I'm falling apart, and I don't want them to see me like this.” They always said yes.

When I got home, sometimes Todd would say, “Where have you been?”

“With Taylor,” I'd answer. But I knew he already knew. I didn't want to go anywhere else. Even though he didn't feel the same way, Todd didn't tell me
not
to go. He respected my need to be there.

Todd woke up enthused about going to work. He was creating, leading, and managing a dynamic start-up. A start-up I was a part of but which overwhelmed me each time I tried to participate. In the beginning, I didn't want to hear about it. But lately, as I showed a bit of interest, Todd would see my participation as a good thing and shower me with more details than I could handle. I'd get frustrated because I couldn't take it all in. He'd get frustrated because he had to repeat himself. “We talked about this yesterday!” he said one afternoon. I believed him; I just didn't remember the conversation.

There were other times when I emerged from the fog I'd been in and really wanted to participate and know what was going on with the foundation. In those moments, I'd ask loads of questions. Sometimes, Todd misinterpreted my interest and thought I was questioning him or his abilities.

Todd was so capable and such a can-do guy that often he moved forward quickly, and it was hard for me to catch up. I never wanted him to think I was challenging him or his ideas, but neither did I want to be left out of everything.

It was complicated.

We made mistakes. Lots of them. One of us would blow up, and after we cooled off, we'd come back and say, “I'm so sorry. Let's figure out how to make this work.” But it was a struggle. Everything
around us had changed—our family, our marriage, and Todd's work were no longer the same. In order to keep it all together, our communication patterns had to change too.

From the moment we made the decision to donate Taylor's organs, I wanted to know the person who had her heart. I wanted to connect with him or her and hug that person. But when Patricia finally reached out to me, I was suddenly hesitant about getting to know her too quickly. For the first few weeks, she emailed or texted Todd. Then as we got to know her better, I felt she needed to connect with me as much as I needed to connect with her. We began emailing and texting directly—usually late at night after our kids had gone to bed.

In the beginning I just shared generic information with her, such as, “I was born in Abilene, and I have three brothers.” I learned she had been raised Catholic too. She had been single for a long time and didn't get married until she was in her thirties—at one point, she even thought she was going to be a nun. I found it was easy to connect with her because she was also a mother: she had two boys ages four and six.

One night before I fell asleep, I texted her and said, “Please tell Taylor good night.”

“I always do,” she texted back.

Soon we friended each other on Facebook. I was dying to see a picture of her but was disappointed when her profile picture was of her kids. Several days later, while in bed, I texted, “Okay, I'm going nuts. I need a picture of you. Can you send me one?”

“No, I'm in my pajamas,” she texted back. “I look horrible. My face is swollen from steroids.”

After a few more texts, we each agreed to snap a picture and send it—a sort of digital “you show me your bad photo, and I'll show you mine.” So I took a picture of my face and sent it to her—no makeup and all.