A Message From Taylor

Of course, I didn’t know it would be our last hug. I didn’t even think for a moment that I’d never get to see her again.

June 20, 2017

“Are you in Ashland?? Wanna go rafting on Wednesday pm down the Rogue? Half day?? For free?? 🙂 – TN

“You’re amazing. Yes. I’m in. Room for the brother too? Stoked to see you and meet the man” – me

Chase and I planned our day around meeting up with Taylor at Indigo Creek Rafting Company in Ashland. From there, we’d hit a section of the Rogue that Chase and I had kayaked and rafted since we were eight and ten years old in our parent’s beat up pack raft that took on more water than we could drain with a half milk carton tied to a string and then attached to the boat. It did the job. And now, June of 2017, I got to be in a boat with one of my best friends and roommates in college. She was practicing guiding for a commercial group (thus, the free trip at our own risk) and I hadn’t seen Tay since she left to go climb in Mexico to begin her year-plus long adventure across the globe. We kept up with each other throughout that year with occasional <3’s and “how ya doin’s” on Facebook Messenger and sometimes, Facetime sessions. You know, nothing out of the normal.

I have rarely come across people in life who can study as hard as she did, take breaks when she needed them all while having this incredibly innate ability to know exactly what she wanted out of her life. and I don’t mean what she wanted five years or even a year down the road. Instead, I mean she knew what she wanted right now. Oh, living for the now…something I struggle with every day, yet it graced Taylor so naturally. She surrounded herself with only those she was closest with and cared for the ones her friends loved too. But frankly, outside of that, she had what I like to call her “f***-you blinders” on. In other words, it was never a conscious effort but she had no need to feed off of other’s judgments of who they might have perceived her to be. She knew who she was and who she wanted to be and I admire the hell out of that. She was happy, filled with laughter, a raised beautiful voice always interrupting or smiling. I guess you could say she really was a wild child.

When I got the text about Taylor’s death I was working at a coffee shop in Laguna Beach. I happened to look at my phone mid-conversation with a customer as we talked about bicycling and so on. My face must have gone flush. My hands started trembling and he asked me, “Are you going to be okay?” I apologized, excused myself and went straight to a locked bathroom simply shaking, speechless and freaked.

It couldn’t be real.

But the story of “how I found out and where I was” seems so dumb when I think of the greater picture. I just lost a dear friend and I’m caught up in where I was when I found out?! Why does that even matter? Maybe it’s a part of processing her passing. It still doesn’t feel real. But please, I want to share a story with you…back to about when we went rafting last month.

“Hey Meg,” Taylor laughs. “I’d recommend tightening those ‘action straps’ and then push your foot so that it’s jammed under the raft.”

Thanks Tay, I sarcastically thought to myself. I know where to put my feet when I raft. But ‘action straps’…what?

Chase looks at me thinking in his head, ‘action straps?’ I must have asked her what she meant and she explained non-shalantly, “action straps…you know…on your Chacos. Got to make sure those are tight for the next rapid.”

Aaaaah, yes. Of course, action straps! How could I not know? I recall imagining where and when she first started calling her Chaco straps ‘action straps’. Probably on some Outdoor Pursuits trip in college surrounded by her favorite classmates, mentors of the great wild and good friends.

 

Our house on Kincaid Street in college was filled with five girls (plus five to six more any given day with boyfriends and friends over). The five of us had more personality than Beyoncé and Tommy Caldwell combined. Most Sunday nights, Ali, Hayla, Taylor, Soph and myself would recollect at home in late hours of the night after long weekends of what we liked to call getting the hell out of Eugene. We were all too familiar with the idea. We most often came home from different places. Ali from some crazy bike expedition or solo car camping. Taylor and Hayla from an Outdoor Pursuits trip, Soph from long hours studying or working and myself from skiing somewhere with the Ski Team.

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It’s almost as if the five of us bonded during the week over what we were hoping to do the next weekend and it was only Monday.

Taylor and I probably connected the most with our “F***-You” blinders. I’m not exactly sure why she believed I had them, but I know I only hoped to be as happy living for the moment as she did. Damn, it feels weird to say “did” and “was”.

So here’s the story that flooded my head when I got the text about Thorpie and Taylor’s accident. At this moment, I believe it to be the reason that I am able to function relatively clearly with scattered ashy thoughts throughout my day.

Taylor was raft guiding for the summer and actually in the last week or so before she died, she and Thorpie had their van parked at a spare house of my parent’s in Ashland. My dad had vacuumed and cleaned the old house so that they had a place to shower and lay some clothes out in. Taylor and Thorpie had big plans of trips together in the coming months. Man were they ever in love. I could just feel their energy being around them when we got beers after rafting that day. Taylor told me that forever is easy with him and she wouldn’t want it any other way. We were a bit up-river from Power House, a popular rapid on the Rogue when she and Chase started talking.

“I mean, I just live such a good life,” Taylor flew her head back as she sat at the stern of the raft, both oars in her tiny little hands laughing. “I truly feel that I am just so lucky to be living the best life that how could I not die young?”

“I think about that all of the time,” Chase responded. “My life is too good not to have something bad happen to me.”

Taylor chimed in, “If I die tomorrow, it would be fine.” And they both laughed a little but had a similar connection in the way they formed such an easy acceptance of the way life works. That was truly the belief that Taylor embodied her everyday life with. Life was what she made it be.

Taylor Nieri scooped the marrow out of what it means to be a person living with her own rules.

This memory offers me the ability to understand that she is okay with this. She would want us to be okay and live our life to the best of our ability. I hope not to offend her family and friends with this remembrance, but rather allow them a word from their daughter and beautiful radiant soul that has given me peace. No, it doesn’t make it right but damn it I’m glad I had that conversation with her.

I pray for her family. Your daughter, your loving wife, your sister has brought me so much light and inspiration and also to so many around her. Taylor did not need to go so soon, but I promise there wasn’t a waking moment that Taylor didn’t milk life for every last climb, every last late night camping trip, every last conversation around the lake, every last everything. Taylor gave it her all.

We miss you Taylor and I love you so much. Thank you for leaving this earth with so many foot steps that we get to retrace. I think our first one might just have to be a trip to Smith Rock in your loving memory my dear Taylor.