In Memory of Taylor Nicole

This year my daughter Taylor would have been sweet sixteen had things been different. But she was born with a defective heart. Despite heroic efforts on the part of the medical team at Jackson Memorial Hospital, and a successful heart operation, her lungs would not adjust to the corrected blood flow.

My wife and I were changed by her short life. There was beauty, and there was horror. We were enriched, and we were broken.

This year during a Spring cleaning, I found a poem that I wrote on May 10, 1994, within a month of Taylor's death. It is raw, and speaks of the separate struggles that my wife and I had to endure. People cope and mourn in altogether different and sometimes seemingly incompatible ways. That we grew to understand this was the reason, I believe, that we survived the loss as a couple, when many under similar circumstances do not.

Until this poem was found, nobody - not even my wife, had read it. The last line of the poem seems to point towards where we are today: we find much to appreciate and enjoy about our lives. I was tempted to extend the line length, and change a few words here and there, but it is probably better to present it as it was written.

So let this poem be a tribute to Taylor's memory, and a testament to all who lose a loved one and especially a child, that you can and will make it beyond the loss, with time.

In memory of Taylor Nicole Kent
(March 11, 1994 to April 18, 1994)

Sweet angel,
The family trembles.

Rocks crumble
Beneath your short existence,
In aftershock.

The mother's dream
Inexorably
Slips through
Trembling hands.
The father drops to his knees
To recover what he can.

Time falls heavenward.

Lifelong companions
Thrash,
Amidst merciless rapids,
Unable to grasp one another,
Except
Occasionally.

The mother drowns in
Your assaulted purity:
In you, the candle,
The innocent flame,
Hacked
To pieces;
In you, the baby's breath,
Smothered
By her own traitorous
Lungs.

The Father is dragged
Downward; his kicks,
His struggling arms,
Amount to nothing;
He breathes alone.
He buries himself in
All things living,
Excavating
The pain of your absence
From them.

He enfolds himself
As a cocoon
Around your brother, and
He touches your mother
As a precious jewel.
Light, deflected
From the prismatic well,
Is dim,
But an occasional flicker
Or spark, makes him dare
To Hope.