Taylor with Susie Culp, Fletcher’s admissions director, on her last day as a sixth grader

The following is eighth in a 12-post series. 

Last spring, my parents made the difficult decision to pull Taylor out of The Fletcher School, a private school for students with specific learning disabilities and/or attention deficit disorders, and put her in a special program at one of the local public high schools for her freshman year of high school.

Taylor doesn’t walk the halls at Fletcher anymore. But in her six years there, the school’s students, teachers and staff became her second family. Batten disease won’t allow Taylor a chance at a “normal” life, but her Fletcher family gave it their best shot, and on a lot of days, they got darn close.

I joined Fletcher’s board of trustees this fall, and a few nights ago, we had our holiday party. Many people at the school know and love my sister, and several went out of their way to ask me about her and wish her a Merry Christmas. I even got a couple of hugs to pass along (I love delivering hugs to my little sister; I stopped by her house tonight to give her a sparkly pink and white princess cupcake from Gigi’s Cupcakes and no less than seven hugs from the team at her old school).

Taylor no longer walks the halls at Fletcher, but she will forever be in the hearts of the people who make the school go – the people who build bright futures for the kids who used to make a place for my sister at their lunch table in the cafeteria and include her in their skits for the annual talent show. Even on the darkest of days, Taylor’s second family reminds me that she is loved by many.

They give me reason to believe.