The Taylor family poses for a photo during a trip to the lake during the summer of 2006. | Photo courtesy of Megan Taylor
Story by Maya Waid
Amid the warm embrace of a Minneapolis afternoon, Megan and Kelcy Taylor raced home from elementary school. The old, weathered porch creaked as they ran across it. They kicked off their shoes and danced to the door, avoiding the nails peeking up from the planks. Megan climbed the stairs of her back porch to find her mom, Pam who was seated at a round-glass table.
There were no assigned seats at this table, just four chairs, one for each Taylor.
Twist. Crack. Sip.
Pam, with her short, dirty blonde hair and boxy brown sunglasses, had one can of Diet Coke ready for each daughter. Sometimes their dad, Rod, would join them outside. He liked to use the single-rack, gray grill on the porch to cook corn on the cob and hamburgers. More than anything though, he loved to watch the girls laugh together.
Megan knew everything was just right. Everything was normal.
“Those moments were always special,” Megan said. “It wasn’t really any different than any other family time, but it was a very signature Taylor family activity.”
Megan thought those family moments would last forever.
The ‘Whoo-Hoo’ Girl
On a warm afternoon in July 1995, Rod proposed to Pam at the top of Eagle Mountain Trail, a seven-mile round trip hike that was located near Pam’s family cabin in Lutsen, Minn. A little more than a year later, the two exchanged vows at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in front of 250 of their friends and family.
When they got back to their hotel room after the ceremony, Pam cried. Everything she wanted was falling into place.
The only thing left? Becoming a mother.
In 1999, the couple announced their pregnancy using glass ornaments bearing the words ‘it’s a baby.’ Nine months later, they welcomed their first daughter Kelcy.
“Knowing how much [Pam] wanted kids from when we were young to being a mom, and then for it to happen was incredibly special,” Rod said.
Three years later, Pam gave birth to their second daughter, Megan.
With time, Pam’s hair turned from blonde to silver and her bangs grew out. As she grew older, she took on every role that a parent does.
As a stay-at-home mom, Pam had the time to do everything with her daughters. She took Megan and Kelcy to swim meets, made them handmade cards for every holiday and challenged them to countless games of Monopoly during their summer trips to their family cabin.
“We always called her the whoo-hoo girl,” Megan said. “She was very cheery. She cheered us on all the time. She would always be the loudest one in the pool area during our meets.”
The Sandbar
In October 2011, during Rod’s sister’s wedding, Megan and Kelcy – ages 6 and 10 respectively – were playing with a Frisbee in the water with their cousins under the warm Florida sun. Pam, standing nearby on a sandbar, shouted – a stingray had stung her foot.
She thought she had been bitten by a crab and didn’t want the kids to feel frightened, so she swam back to shore and found help at the resort. Pam did everything she could to make light of the situation and get back to the family festivities.
As a kid, Megan didn’t know everything that happened after the incident in Florida. She does know that this is when things started to change.
In the weeks following her injury, Pam began acting differently. She dyed her hair pink, misplaced money, accidentally cut Rod’s head while trimming his hair and fell asleep during movies.
The Taylor’s would later find out that Pam’s symptoms had nothing to do with the stingray, but something much worse.
Pam rarely slept in, but on a Saturday in November, she didn’t come downstairs until noon. She passed Rod in the kitchen and sat down in the living room. Her body immediately gave out and she fell to the floor.
Rod rushed to help his wife into the car, called his mother-in-law to pick up the girls, and headed to the emergency room.
10 Minutes
Can you lift this arm?
No movement.
Can you lift this leg?
Still nothing.
After her body failed to respond to the doctor’s test, Pam was taken to get an MRI scan. In Rod’s mind, it took an hour to find out what was wrong, but in reality, it only took 10 minutes for the doctor to return.
Ten minutes was all it took to give Pam her official diagnosis — Stage 3 Glioblastoma, also known as a brain tumor.
“The doctor came back and said, ‘Yeah, you have a long road, good luck.’ And then they just admitted her,” Rod said.
Ten minutes was all it took to change their lives.
A Growing Cloud
Rod struggled with how to tell his kids the news. Really, this was something that Pam was best at. His daughters were 6 and 10. No words felt right.
“My dad said, ‘There’s a cloud in a part of your mom’s brain,’” Megan said. “‘It’s getting bigger and it’s affecting more of her abilities and skills.’”
For the next few weeks, while their mom began treatment, Megan and Kelcy were surrounded by family and friends. Their mom’s sorority sisters were always around, bringing food and offering smiles. Neighbors and friends chipped in whenever they could.
More than anyone, Rod’s mom, Barbara, stepped in to support her grandchildren. She helped them with their homework after school, picked them up from practices, and provided the emotional support they needed.
Even though Barbara was present in every way, she still harbors a sense of uncertainty from those years.
“Did I do everything for the kids?” Barbara said. “And maybe I should have embraced them more? I did what I thought they would want me to do.”
3:00 a.m.
Pam went through more than a year of treatment and several rounds of chemotherapy. When Pam was offered a spot in a new clinical trial – one that might have prolonged her life – she declined. She was done fighting.
She fought for a long time. Fifteen months to be exact.
In Megan’s eyes, she could see her mom slipping away. The tumor affected her personality, her memory and her physical abilities. Despite spending the last 14 months of her life in a wheelchair, Pam was still their ‘whoo-hoo girl.’
On their final trip to the cabin as a family of four, Kelcy saw what she had always seen in her parents – before all else, they were best friends.
“One of my favorite pictures is us at our family cabin when we had to take an RV to get up there because [my mom] had to be in a wheelchair,” Kelcy said. “It’s a picture of [my parents] sitting in the window together and my dad is hugging her from behind. It was really beautiful to see a relationship like that growing up.”
On Jan. 30, 2013, Pam died at home in the early hours of the morning. She was 43 years old.
Rod sat with her, squeezing her hand the same way he had done for 17 years. He heard her breath slowly fade away.
Rod went upstairs later that morning, at 7:00 a.m., to tell his girls. He looked at Megan’s door but decided to go to Kelcy first. He figured Kelcy could at least help comfort her younger sister when he told them the news.
To this day, Megan doesn’t recall many details of what was said that morning, but she still hears her dad’s voice saying, “She’s gone.”
“We walked down the stairs which felt weird to me,” Rod said. “It was like it was Christmas. It was like we were coming down the stairs to go to see the tree, but we were going to see their mom.”
Megan gave her mom a hug and then gently squeezed her hand before sitting next to her. She knew this was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier to sit with her mother knowing she was gone forever.
“The thought of her dying had been on all of our minds for so many months before,” Megan said, pausing for several seconds before adding, “But the fact that it had actually happened was so weird.”
The Aftermath
After her mom passed, Megan and her family coped in their own ways. The girls saw a grief counselor at the church – the very place where their parents had exchanged vows, and they were confirmed.
Rod found comfort on the treadmill at the Calhoun Beach Club. He found solace in the repetitive rhythm of placing one foot in front of the other, again and again.
Megan didn’t go to school for a week, she spent most of her time in her room drawing with colored pencils or playing Temple Run on her iPad – anything to block out her emotions. She didn’t want to accept that her mom was gone and her life had changed.
Megan asked her dad if they would get an evil stepmom and grow up the same as Cinderella did in the classic Disney movie. Even though that didn’t happen, Megan struggled in the years following her mom’s death.
She had conversations with counselors and family about everything that had happened. But even now, 11 years later at the age of 20, Megan doesn’t think she fully processed the loss of her mom.
“I think me, my sister and my dad never really dealt with our grief,” Megan said. “I think that’s what made us closer. Instead of dealing with our grief, we all just lived in it together.”
It took several years for the family to talk about Pam in the same way they used to. As the girls grew up, Megan felt like she could ask Rod more questions about those years and her mom. Time brought the Taylor’s closer and together, they started to grow out of their grief.
“We knew we can’t live in that grief forever,” Megan said. “It’s just going to hold you back and weigh you down.
‘xoxo’
Megan and Kelcy often found comfort when sitting on their dark purple, plush couch together. They turned on Pretty Little Liars or Modern Family and sat together in silence. There was an unspoken mutual understanding in this moment.
Maybe their new normal wouldn’t be so bad.
The ‘xoxo’ tattoo on Megan’s right arm serves as a tribute to her mother’s memory. Pam, in all the heartfelt cards she wrote to her children, would sign them with her distinctive handwriting, embellishing each with tiny smiles and ‘xoxo’ at the bottom. The tattoo captures the love Pam left in every message.
Rod’s tattoo choice?
A stingray that sits on his right shoulder. It’s his permanent reminder of Pam’s approach to life and how she could make the most of every situation.
Whether it was their shared love for celebrating birthdays or the way they turned away from Rod when they were upset in the car, as Megan grew up she continued to embody Pam completely.
Turning the Tables
Megan and Kelcy visited their mom in the hospital two to three times a week when she was being treated. When she reflects on it, Megan can recall sitting with her mom and taking trips to the Midtown Global Market for lunch with her dad during visits.
But she also remembers the effort the medical professionals put towards Megan and her sister. They consistently checked in with them and made jokes to lighten the mood in the otherwise somber room.
“The healthcare team did not let a day go by without trying to make me or my sister smile,” Megan said. “They were always very considerate, and they were thinking about the young girls in the room like ‘There’s this 7 and 11 year old, we need to make them smile, we need to make them happy.’”
Megan knows a significant part of her interest in medicine stems from her mother’s battle with cancer. However, Megan looked forward to seeing the doctors and nurses in the hospital when she saw her mom. She knew she could count on them to make it better.
Now, she wants to do the same for others. She is starting by studying neuroscience at UNC.
“I think just being in that setting, I can give back by being on the other side of it and making that impact for people,” Megan said. “I want to make somebody else smile in the way that I had experienced.”
The Coke Can
In August 2022, Rod, Megan, and Rod’s girlfriend, Kessin, piled into their 2018 Toyota Highlander for the two-day drive south to Chapel Hill. Rod was going to drop Megan off for her freshman year at UNC before heading to vacation in Wilmington, N.C. After everything they had been through, this move felt different for Rod.
“I hugged [Megan] and I just had to turn around and get in the car,” Rod said. “I cried all the way to Wilmington. It was really, really hard because I knew I had to go back and be home. I had to be in that house and they’re all gone. That was it, they were all gone.”
Megan knew that majoring in neuroscience would be a difficult road, one where she might have to relive some of the hardships she felt when her mom was in treatment. Above all else, Megan wants to mirror the compassionate care she witnessed in the doctors who treated her mom.
“Megan is sentimental,” Rod said. “She’s genuine. I feel like this is something she wants to do that has to do with her mom and I want her to be able to do that for herself.”
Kelcy, now 23 years old, lives in Chicago where she is pursuing acting. In her eyes, theater is a way of honoring her mom, who loved all things related to musicals.
“I couldn’t put myself back in a situation like that,” Kelcy said. “But Megan is just the kind of person that instead of running away from it like I do, she just is going to help other people through it. I have never been more proud of anything in my entire life. She’s kind of our star in our family, so we’re all very proud of her.”
Megan is unsure of whether her future will lead her to oncology, pediatrics or another discipline of medicine. But for now, she is content with knowing she will make a difference in people’s lives.
This is her new normal.
As Megan immerses herself in the world of neurotransmitters and chemical pathways, she surrounds herself with familiar comforts. A purple Stanley always accompanies her alongside a snack and a cozy blanket – all her essentials for a focused study session.
“The passion that drives me to neuroscience is fueled by my mom,” Megan said. “I know academically it will be hard, but I can do it. My mom is the reason I have this passion and that will drive me through the whole thing.”
Yet, amidst the array of study aids, one constant stands out: a can of Diet Coke.
It’s more than just her go-to drink. Those same sounds and feelings take her back to cherished afternoons on the back porch with her mom.
Twist. Crack. Sip.
Maya Waid is a sophomore from Harrisonburg, Virginia double majoring in Journalism and Global Leadership. She has experience in writing, reporting, marketing, social media, editing and design. Maya writes for the sports desk at The Daily Tar Heel and for James Madison University Athletics where her work was published online and in JMU’s yearly magazine. This summer, she will write for both The News & Observer and The Charlotte Observer at the Paris Olympics in France. In the future, Maya hopes to continue pursuing her passion for impactful storytelling through a job in print journalism.
