Taylor's Gift (31 page)

On the fifteenth, I wrote a note to Taylor in my notebook:

I'm not falling apart like I thought I would. A gift from you and God. One year without you. How did I ever make it?

That night as Tara and I sat together in the kitchen, I said, “If we can make it through this, we can make it through anything.” But the truth was that we had done more than make it. Though it had been the hardest year of our married life, I loved Tara even more now than I did a year ago.

Tara

By June 2011, we had mostly resumed our usual activities. I know some people would call it returning to normal, or a new normal,
but I didn't like those terms. In my mind, we'd never be normal again. But we were surviving. While there were still fluctuations in the stock market of our emotions, to use Todd's analogy, if we weren't trending upward, we were at least holding steady.

One day we were getting ready to leave the house as a family to head to Fossil Rim, a wildlife park. Before we left, the phone rang, and I answered it.

“My name is Dueene Zoller, and my daughter, Ashley, has Taylor's cornea,” the caller said.

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly while she continued.

“I got your letter, and I am so sorry I never wrote back,” she said. “I can't imagine what you're going through.”

It had been more than a year since I'd sent out the first letter, and we hadn't heard anything—I didn't think we ever would.

I went out onto the back porch so we could talk. Dueene told me she was sitting in her truck in the parking lot of JD's Pizza in Rapid City, South Dakota, where they lived. She said Ashley was a twenty-year-old special needs child.

“How's she doing?” I asked.

“Really good,” Dueene said. She explained how Ashley's eye had been coning and how that had caused severe headaches. “The new cornea made the headaches go away.” She told me how Ashley had woken up from her surgery and said, “I need to go to Texas!” and how odd Dueene thought that was until she received our letter. “Maybe there's a connection there?” she asked. She also told me that when she looked into Ashley's eyes, she saw Taylor.

“Thank you for calling!” I said. I could tell it was hard for Dueene to reach out. Ashley was obviously her whole world, and the thought of losing her daughter had to be hard for her to conceive. But I was thrilled to have connected with her and to hear how well Ashley was doing. I told Dueene how we'd met some of the other recipients and how we hoped one day to meet Ashley too.

The conversation was short and sweet. Now we had connected with four out of the five recipients. Wow!

After we hung up, I went into the house and told Todd and the kids about the phone call. It excited the kids, but after they heard the news, they were ready to go to Fossil Rim. In a funny kind of way, it was almost normal for them to hear about these kinds of unexpected calls, and I was pleased that they no longer triggered prolonged episodes of grief.

When we finally headed out to Fossil Rim, I stared out the car window and prayed. I thanked God for Ashley and Dueene and that they had reached out. In the hospital, we'd been told we might never connect with even one recipient, and now we'd connected with four amazing people. I couldn't wait to one day get to heaven and introduce them to Taylor.

But somehow, I felt that Taylor already knew them.

I still hadn't found the peace I'd been looking for, but I resolved that I probably never would. This wasn't the way our story was supposed to be written. The natural order of things is that children are supposed to outlive their parents, grow up, get married, and have their own children. However, though we were having to rewrite our story, this wasn't the end of Taylor. Through organ donation, Taylor had already outlived herself and continued to do so each day through Jeff, Patricia, Jonathan, and now Ashley.

And with God's help, now we were learning how to live on without her.

The Gift of Giving Back

J
EFF
K
ARTUS
C
OLORADO

The cowboy was no longer confined to the house, and because he didn't have to worry about low blood sugar, he was free to do as much physical labor as he liked. So every morning Jeff volunteered at a local stable, feeding and watering the horses and cleaning stalls. Jeff adored horses, and he didn't mind getting dirty taking care of them. But even more than caring for the horses, he enjoyed helping the people who boarded their horses there.

One of the regulars at the stable was a woman named Kim. She suffered from a chronic pain condition that affects the nervous system and can be debilitating. Kim could no longer walk and had to employ a Hoveround power wheelchair to get from her truck to the barn. But she was determined to ride her horse, Copper, no matter what. Kim had figured out a way to mount Copper by standing on the Hoveround. She'd get off by doing the same thing in reverse.

Jeff kept an eye on her during her mounts and dismounts and while she was riding. He videotaped her lessons so she could watch them later at home. And he always cleaned up after Copper. There was no way Kim could handle a shovel to clean up after him herself.

Kim told Jeff that riding Copper made her feel whole. But it was also an important part of her therapy—since a horse's gait most closely mimics a human's gait. Through riding, Kim's body built up the stamina she needed to walk short distances, which made all the difference in her quality of life.

Jeff understood. Before the transplant surgery, he'd also been confined to a wheelchair. He knew how important it was to be independent. Jeff was happy to do what he could to help Kim retain her independence.

One day, Jeff was cleaning stalls while Kim was out riding in the pasture. He heard a horse running, and looked up to see Copper running past him, his saddle askew, headed toward the stable. Jeff was confused. Did he really see what he thought he saw? Or was he losing his mind? As a result of his accidents, he'd had a lot of head trauma, and he couldn't always tell if what he saw was real or something in his head. As he tried to figure it out, he heard Kim's guide dog, Alexei.

Jeff looked out toward the fields and saw Alexei barking. Kim was lying next to her on the ground. Something had gone terribly wrong. Kim couldn't dismount without using her Hoveround to get off. Jeff knew she'd either had a seizure and fallen off or she'd been thrown. Either way, he knew she must be injured and was possibly in a lot of pain. All those car accidents flashed through his mind. His body tensed, remembering the injuries—the broken ribs, neck, and back.

Jeff knew he should call an ambulance, but when Kim had had her last seizure she'd begged him not to. He understood. He'd had enough seizures due to low blood sugar and knew what that felt
like. Each time an ambulance came, they just wanted to take him to the hospital. After so many trips, he started refusing to go and begged Vanessa to take care of him at home.

But this was different; Kim had been thrown from a horse. What if she was really hurt?

Before he could make a decision, Copper circled past him again. Jeff knew he had to do something about the horse. Kim loved her horse almost as much as she loved her husband. If anything happened to Copper, it would devastate her. He took another quick look at Kim and saw she was now sitting up. That was a good sign.

He went after the horse.

Fortunately, after racing toward the stables, Copper just trotted back to his familiar pen, and Jeff was able to open the gate and let him in, securing it behind him. Kim's saddle was still askew on Copper's back, but Jeff would have to leave that for later. At least the horse was safe. He had to get to Kim.

He looked out toward the field and saw she was still sitting up. He could run out there, or he could even take a horse, but he couldn't bring her back that way. He would have to get her Hoveround and drive it out to her. He ran to where she'd parked it, but he was unfamiliar with how to operate it and couldn't get it started.

He could think of only one other option. Jeff would have to drive his truck out to the pasture. He knew this was against the rules, but he felt he didn't have any other choice. He jumped in his truck, put it in gear, and tore through the fields.

As he drove across the pasture, with his heart pounding and his mind racing, Jeff wondered if this was what Vanessa felt like every time she raced to one of his accident scenes. It was a scary feeling to know someone you cared about was injured and not know what you'd find when you arrived. As the truck bumped and bounced through the fields, tossing dirt clods into the air, he thought about Vanessa having done this very same thing so many times for him. Now he was able to do it for someone else.

Pulling up next to Kim, Jeff could see she was alert and talking.

“I'm not sure what happened,” Kim said when he reached her.

Jeff checked to make sure she wasn't injured before gently lifting her into the truck.

“Is Copper okay?” she asked.

Jeff assured her that Copper was fine. He closed the door, loaded Alexei into the bed of the truck, and drove as gently as he could back to the stables. Other than a few bruises, including a bruised ego, Kim seemed fine.

“Thank you so much!” she said. “I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been here!”

Jeff was thankful. Kim was fine, but it could have been worse. Jeff thought about all the accidents he never walked away from—the times he was put in the hospital to fight for his life.

Kim's husband later thanked Jeff for rescuing his wife. “Though riding is so good for her, it can also be dangerous. I wouldn't let her keep doing this if it weren't for you,” he said.

“I'm just glad I can help,” Jeff said.

Eighteen months after meeting Todd and Tara, and twenty-one months after his kidney/pancreas transplant, Jeff still thought of Taylor every day. It was hard not to. His life was completely different from the one he'd lived before the transplant. Because of her gift, he was able to do what he'd always wanted to do—help others.