Shenango family learns to push on a year after the death of wife, mother

By Kayleen Cubbal

New Castle News

There has been a lot of good that has happened in the Taylor family during the past year.

They won a trip to Disney World. Oldest child Ethan was selected to play his saxophone in district jazz band, to perform a solo in concert band and was picked as an escort on Shenango High’s homecoming court.

Youngest child Isaiah is starting to come into his own on a successful Wildcats football team for which his dad coaches.

There remains, however, one huge missing piece to this otherwise-happy puzzle: Jackie.

Jackie Pilner Taylor died Oct. 19, 2014, at the age of 48 after a battle with fallopian tube cancer.

She left behind her husband of 23 years, Harold, and the two boys she nurtured into polite, personable young men.

“We miss her,” Harold said. “Even now, it’s still hard to imagine life without her.”

But Harold, in his 30th season as an assistant football coach at his Shenango alma mater, has had to forge ahead as he plays the role of both mom and dad with two extremely ambitious, extremely busy young men.

“I think the biggest adjustment has been having to organize everything, which is what Jackie did for all those years,” Harold said. “Before, I just got everybody to where they were going. Now I am trying to do what two people used to do, and making sure they feel safe and loved in between.”

It has helped that Ethan, 18, a senior, and Isaiah, 17 and a junior, both have their driver’s licenses and are able to share a used car. Harold’s mom, Kathy Taylor, prepares meals for the family often and Jackie’s large legion of friends checks in on the family often.

Harold and his sons underwent counseling at the Highmark Caring Place in Cranberry following Jackie’s death, something that was recommended by her hospice team.

“I got a little resistance on that at first, but I think after a couple of sessions, the boys appreciated having someone to talk to,” Harold said.

Although all three say the tragedy has drawn them closer, both boys do not hesitate to admit how much they miss their mom.

“I miss the little things, like her not being there when I come home after school or not being there when I’m sick,” Ethan said.

“I just miss that person to talk to,” Isaiah said. “I could always talk to her about anything.”

Harold said one of his toughest moments occurred when Ethan’s concert band solo turned out to be a song from “The Lord of the Rings,” which just happened to be one of Jackie’s favorite songs.

“What are the chances that would have been the song he was given to play,” Harold said. “She was there in spirit, there was no doubt about that, but I felt like she needed to be there in person. There were a lot of tears that night. It wasn’t fair that she had to miss that.”



A TOUGH DIAGNOSIS

Jackie’s nightmare started at a family gathering on Christmas Eve 2011. The 1984 Laurel High graduate cried out when she felt like something exploded in her lower abdomen, but when the pain subsided, she put it out of her mind. She began to worry, though, when she felt a hard spot in her stomach several months later and contacted her doctor.

Exploratory surgery revealed a fist-sized cyst attached to Jackie’s ovaries. The diagnosis was Stage 4 fallopian tube cancer.

Jackie was told that chemotherapy might slow the process, but at best, she had a life expectancy of about six years. For two-plus years, she tried chemotherapy, radiation and even holistic therapy. Prayer chains were started and, at one point, late in 2012, she was sent home with a diagnosis that her tumor was no longer detectable. That triumph was short-lived, however, and in 2013, she was told that her cancer markers were back up.

“She fought like crazy,” Harold said. “She would not give in to the cancer. Up until two weeks before she died, she would not agree to let hospice be called in, she said she was going to beat it.”

In the last months, however, Harold knew something that the boys and not even Jackie knew.

Jackie began to show signs of exhaustion and weakness after returning from a vacation in June 2014. She collapsed at home weeks later and an ambulance was called. She was given more radiation to again try and shrink her growing tumor.

“What she didn’t know was that the tumor had spread to her lymph system. Her doctor told me in August that he thought she was getting close to the end,” Harold said. “I chose not to share it with her. She wanted to fight and I decided to let her do that.”

He told Ethan and Isaiah that they were going to lose their mom just before hospice was brought in.

“We spent as much quality time with her as we could,” Harold said. “The day before she died, her sister Carrie (Solomon) came in and we spent hours with her telling stories and laughing. She was laughing like she hadn’t laughed in a long time. It was a good day, but I knew she didn’t have much time left.”

Still, Jackie needed the approval of her boys.

“She said she wasn’t going to leave if we weren’t going to be OK,” Isaiah said bravely as Ethan nodded. “So I told her it was all right, that we would be OK.”

In the wee hours of the next morning, Jackie died peacefully in her sleep. Hundreds came to her viewing and funeral.

“The show of support for the kids and me was amazing,” Harold said. “Friends, family, the school, the band, all of the sports teams. They all surrounded us with love.”

The day after Jackie was buried, the Taylor family won a trip to Disney World in a football booster raffle.

“I thought they set it up for us to win, but it was based on the daily number and I had the number,” Harold said.

The family viewed it as a sign from Jackie that she wanted them to go on. In March of this year, they took that trip.



LIFE WITHOUT JACKIE

There is still much sadness at Jackie’s absence, but they are trying to honor her wish to go on with their lives and not waste any more time grieving.

In addition to his boys, 54-year-Harold is kept busy by his job at the Pennsylvania American Water Company, while working under his fourth head coach at Shenango.

Ethan, a lifelong lover of trains who photographs them in his spare time, plans to study Rail Transportation Engineering at Penn State-Altoona. Isaiah, an incessant talker, according to his dad, is engrossed in sports of all kinds.

“My boys could not be any different,” Harold said. “But the one thing they have in common is that they both have a lot of Jackie in them. I try to spend individual time and make each of them the center of my attention at different times. We do things together, but we do things separately, too.

“The most important thing is that I have been blessed with two great young men who I am very proud of.”



THE ROAD AHEAD

Harold recently began dating. It is something that Jackie made clear that she wanted him to do and something to which she gave her blessing, mentioning her longtime friend, Shonda Winck, to her husband in a conversation with him late in her illness.

“She actually picked her for me,” Harold said. “That may sound odd, but she made it clear that Shonda was the kind of person she would be OK with in my life and in the kids’ lives. She told me not to let life pass me by while I was grieving.

“A few people gave me a little of a tough time about it at first, but they’ve come around,” he added. “My sister-in-law (Carrie), who is a very important person in our lives, gave it her blessing because she knew that Jackie was OK with it.”

And both boys give it a thumbs-up.

“She’s nice and she’s fun and she makes our dad happy,” Isaiah said.

“We like her,” Ethan added. “So it’s OK with us.”

All three Taylors make it clear that while life has gone on, they will never forget the woman who shaped their lives.

“Jackie would want to be remembered as a good mother, a good wife and a good Christian,” Harold said. “And she was all of those things.

“She made the most of her time here and now she is watching us from above.”