Twelve Reasons to Believe: Taylor’s Secret Fan Club

Published: December 22, 2012  ~   4
By Laura Edwards

Taylor's secret fanThe following is ninth in a 12-post series. 

Because my little sister has a non-profit organization named for her, she’s more famous than most girls her age. A lot of people – from close friends and family to perfect strangers all over the world – send well wishes and bear hugs her way. She’s the star of a website and social media sites and this blog. She’s been featured in newspapers and magazines and television news stories.

She even has a secret fan club.

In 2006 – the same year we learned Taylor has Batten disease – Mom served on the board of the Council for Children’s Rights; she got to know the organization’s development assistant, a young woman about my age, and sponsored her for the Junior League of Charlotte.

Taylor breezed her way into this young woman’s heart. The two became fast friends, meeting for ice cream cones and puppy walks (the young woman helped Taylor get a Bichon Frise – a cottony ball of energy and love named Sunny to complement her own easygoing Bichon, Mason).

Soon, packages began to arrive in my parents’ mailbox. Addressed to Taylor, the envelopes identified the sender simply as “Taylor’s Secret Fan Club.” They contained silly glasses and mixed CDs and art supplies; “girly girl” stuff from Michael’s or the $1 section at Target.

About a year later, this young woman gained acceptance to law school at Northwestern University in Chicago. Taylor was happy for her friend but sad that she wouldn’t get to see her every week. She understood her friend’s decision, though, because she believes everyone should follow their dreams.

Not too long after Taylor said goodbye to her friend, she received another package from her secret fan club. It had a Chicago return address.

Taylor’s Secret Fan Club moved its headquarters a few more times over the next couple of years, but its president has never forgotten my little sister. And regardless of what the future holds, I’ll never forget the love she squeezed into all of those packages or the love she showered on Taylor – her special friend.

She gives me reason to believe.

Nostalgia

Published: September 16, 2010  ~   0
By Laura Edwards

It’s been a nostalgic week around here.

Friday night, John and I flew through the aisles at Michael’s 10 minutes before they closed and made it up to checkout with armfuls of art supplies just as they locked the front door. We recently dragged out our high school art portfolios and got inspired (to make more art, not take the time to move the enormous portfolios from the office floor back to the closet where they belong). This fall, whenever our interest in the football game on TV is just lukewarm, we’ll watch it from the back of our bonus room, where we have a rickety table that wouldn’t exactly strike you as a place for art but will become one just the same.

Two days after our adventure at Michael’s, the Panthers were down two touchdowns when I heard the piano movers arrive (I wish I could have seen their faces the moment they discovered my mountainous driveway, double-checked the address on the mailbox, realized that yes, that was the house, and regret that they weren’t charging me a whole lot more money). The grand piano my mom got for her 14th birthday – the one that has resided at my grandmother’s house ever since – is now sitting in my great room. It is a resilient instrument, having survived a fire and a couple of moves. It is a beautiful piece of art and deserves to be played by someone who is not 10 years out of practice, which is why I tried to teach myself to sight-read again tonight and unexpectedly played a duet with my dog, Daisy, who isn’t used to the piano and, as I just learned, likes to sit behind the bench and bark on the high notes.

After Daisy and I finished our duet tonight, I returned to my laptop and bought tickets to our high school reunion. I don’t look all that much different than I did 10 years ago, but somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, I got 10 years older.

I can explain the sudden urge to relearn the piano after all these years, but I can’t explain why John and I dug through all of the junk in our storage closet to get to a bunch of drawings/paintings we did in high school, nor can I explain what possessed us to spend all that money on art supplies (money well spent, but why now?). I also can’t explain why I sat cross-legged in the floor of our office after dinner tonight, rifling through photos from my Charlotte Soccer Club days, or why I’m listening to Deep Blue Something right now, which hasn’t been cool since I was 14 (if it ever was). Maybe I’m running away from the present. After all, it’s been raining in my world this week, and for all the optimism I preach in this space, for all that talk about dancing in the rain, a lot of times, I just want to crawl into my shell and try in vain to stay dry. My life wasn’t perfect before I knew my sister has Batten disease, but it sure was a hell of a lot easier. I only wish I’d known how blessed I was at the time. Don’t we all say that at some point in our lives?

Mom, Taylor and I went to the Blumenthal Sunday night to see Mary Poppins. For all the injustices that have been done to T, she’s still better at dancing in the rain than her big sister. She couldn’t see the coolest parts of the show (when Bert walked up one wall, across the ceiling and down the other wall, and when Mary Poppins floated out over the crowd and glided into one of the balconies), but she still smiled and laughed and had a great time and clapped along with the crowd when the cast sang “Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious.” T loves theater/ballet/etc. and always has. Even when she was really little, The Nutcracker was one of the highlights of the year for her.

Here is an old picture of T, our brother Stephen and me at one of those Christmas productions when T was a toddler. I realize the picture quality’s bad, but does she look happy or what? Back then, I took those moments for granted. Now, I treasure them, partly because I don’t have any idea how many more we’ll share. I’m already nostalgic for our night at Mary Poppins. I’m nostalgic for the dinner we shared at Jason’s Deli two weeks ago. I’m nostalgic for future moments with T, and I hope to God there will be a lot of them.