Dr. Taylor was taken away in an ambulance on an evening of warm, late-spring rain. Over the forty years that had passed since he and his family had moved into the house next door, meaningful interactions between us had been fairly minimal. But I still found myself shaken as I stood on my front step watching paramedics load him into the back of the ambulance while his son, Matt, looked on with what looked like grim acknowledgement. I was aware that Dr. Taylor had survived radiation and chemo treatments for head/neck cancer several months before; despite his taciturn nature, we had developed a mild neighborliness over time due largely to our shared interest in the rose beds separating our front yards. We visited there occasionally when we were both tending them, and he’d recently been surprisingly forthcoming, given his prior reticence, about the toll those treatments had taken. He’d already turned ninety by then, a couple of decades older than me, and like mine, his wife had long been deceased. Matt had been out of the house on his own since shortly after Dr. Taylor finished his twenty year stint as a Navy dentist and began a series of temporary positions with the federal prison system.
Before Matt got in his car at the curb to follow the ambulance, I hurried out to him, handed him a scrap of paper on which I’d scribbled my cell phone number, and said, “If I can do anything… anything at all.”
Our eyes held briefly. I didn’t know Matt well because he’d gone off to college soon after moving in. He was a lawyer who lived about an hour away and wasn’t around much; Dr. Taylor rarely mentioned him.
“His right foot,” Matt blurted. “The paramedic told me he’s almost sure it will have to be removed.” His gaze was stony, expressionless. “I mean the front part, anyway. It’s completely black. No circulation… none.”
I whispered, “Good Lord.”
“Yeah,” Matt rubbed at his goatee. “All those years of smoking and drinking catching up to him again.” He glanced down at the number I’d given him. “Thanks for this… I’ll let you know.”
I nodded. The rain fell like a veil in the gloaming as I watched him climb in his car and pull away.
***
Matt didn’t call for almost a week. During that time, I brought Dr. Taylor’s newspapers and mail inside his front gate where I stored them in a cardboard box on an umbrella table next to an ashtray. I’d watered his roses a couple of times, too.
“Say,” Matt began, “I’m wondering if I can take you up on your offer. I’m due in court all day, and my dad is asking for his toiletry kit. He’s pretty adamant about it… demanding, actually, almost frantic. Says he needs his razor immediately. Would you possibly be able to run it over to him? He’s at the VA Hospital… room 412.”
“Sure,” I said. “I can do that.”
He gave a sigh of relief. “That’s great. Kit’s on a shelf in the bathroom upstairs off the master bedroom. Hide-a-key’s under the potted plant by the front door.” He paused. “Really appreciate this.”
“No worries. He doing all right?”
“Well, aside from missing half a foot, he seems as ornery and self-absorbed as ever.” Matt gave a sort of chortle.
“Will he be able to come home at some point?”
“All that’s up in the air.” Another pause followed. “At ninety-one, who the heck knows?”
I nodded, though I realized he couldn’t see it.
“Gotta go,” he continued, “Thanks again. Tell him I’ll call him later.”
The line went dead. I looked outside at the rose bushes bracketing our yards. Both had just begun to bud. His buttery-yellow Julia Child nobs peeked out tentatively, while my heavier Icebergs nodded their white heads on the small breeze.
***
When I arrived mid-morning, I found Dr. Taylor lying on his back in his hospital bed sound asleep, a tiny trail of drool trickling down one side of his chin. As gently as I could, I gave his shoulder a small shake. His eyes snapped open and filled with startled confusion.
“Sorry for waking you,” I said quietly. “Matt asked me to bring you this.” I moved the toiletry kit into his line of vision and set it on the lap table that crossed his midsection.
His eyes slowly gained focus. I took a tissue from my pocket, showed it to him, and said, “Here… can I…”
He made no response, so I reached out, wiped the spittle away from his chin, and dropped the tissue in the trash can beside his bed. I glanced around the room, dim with the blinds closed over its lone window. Muffled voices came from the nursing station outside the door. The skin on his bald head appeared to be drawn tighter than I last remembered it, and his wire-rimmed glasses perched slightly askew on his nose. Both feet extended beyond his blankets; the right foot heavily bandaged up to where it ended at his instep.
“So,” I said. “How’s it going?”
Several seconds passed before he gave a single shrug, then scratched his cheek. “Need a shave,” he said without looking at me. “Can’t manage myself right now.”
“That’s something I can help with,” I said. “I’ve shaved myself once or twice.”
He didn’t smile at my feeble attempt at levity, but also didn’t dissent when I rummaged through his kit, removed his razor and shaving cream, and carried a little kidney-shaped basin from his lap table into the bathroom. I filled it with warm water, took a towel from the rack, and returned to his bedside. Without asking, I pulled the cord on the light behind his bed and raised its incline; he gave no reaction to those gestures either. A disinfectant-like odor lingered in the close air.
I wet a corner of the towel, then said, “Okay, let’s give this a whirl.”
He allowed me to dampen his face and neck, then apply shaving cream. After I dipped the razor in the basin and lifted it his way, he seemed to extend his jaw a bit to meet it. I shaved his heavy stubble in short, careful strokes while his rheumy eyes stared off into the near distance and images of my wife doing the same for me during my own admittance for heart surgery a decade earlier made my throat tighten.
When I finished, I dried him off, then applied a little aftershave I found in his kit. I straightened and said, “There… how’s that feel?”
Dr. Taylor touched his smooth cheek with a knuckle and fashioned a short nod. To fill the silence that followed, I continued my own nodding. The skin across his forehead was so taut, I could see the veins at his temples pulsing.
Finally, I said, “Well, I’ll get out of your way. I just came by to drop that off.”
He emitted a soft, groan-like sound. Without looking at me, he said, “Come back.” A cart rattled past in the hallway. After its sound had dissipated, he muttered, “Gets lonely.”
I felt my eyebrows raise. “Matt visits, doesn’t he?”
“Once.”
Dr. Taylor glared straight ahead and made a slight chewing motion I’d never noticed before. Without considering further, I patted the knee of his uninjured leg and said, “Then I’ll see you again soon. Take care… rest up.”
***
I waited until I’d gotten back home before sending Matt a text summarizing my visit. I didn’t receive a reply until that evening: a thumbs-up emoji accompanied by one with praying hands. I walked next door and collected Dr. Taylor’s mail and newspaper again, but after dropping them in the cardboard box, I used the hide-a-key, brought the box inside, and set it down in the foyer. A movement sensor had turned on an end-table lamp a few feet away in the living room. I could see the pull-out couch next to it made up into a bed and a stack of large-print library books under it on the table topped with a magnifying glass. Over the years, I’d seen Dr. Taylor make regular trips to our public library several streets away, always by foot until he’d recently begun using a motorized scooter. The refrigerator kicked on in the shadows of a kitchen on the other side of the foyer where I could just make out the remains of a bottle of vodka on the island counter. I shook my head wondering what the future held for him before I locked the door behind me, replaced the hide-a-key, and tried not to include myself in that thought.
***
I found Dr. Taylor sitting up in bed fiddling with his cell phone when I returned to his hospital room a couple mornings later. I paused in his open doorway and knocked on its frame. His only response was a frustrated shake of the phone, so I knocked again louder. He finally glanced my way with a furrowed brow and said, “Hey.”
“Hi, there.” I walked over to his bedside. “Looks like you might be having trouble with that.”
He gave the cell phone another shake and brought it close to his glasses. “Can’t listen to my radio station,” he snorted. “Can’t see the damn icon, and there’s no volume.”
“Here,” I said. “Let me try.”
He thrust the phone my way. I found the icon on its face, got it going, and increased the volume with the button on its side that had been reduced to mute. I handed it back to him and moved his thumb over the volume controls. “You had it turned way down,” I told him. “Push this one here to make it louder.”
He did, causing it to blare, then brought it close to his face again and tapped across the screen until he’d managed to pause it. “Jesus,” he muttered, setting it on the lap table. “I’m just about useless. Can’t read anymore even with a magnifying glass, and hearing’s close to shot, too. Don’t get old.”
I chuckled. “Too late for that.”
He huffed a snort. His window blinds had been opened, illuminating the side of his gaunt face with a shaft of sun. When he turned to look at me, I stiffened at the expression in his eyes: the cold rigidity I’d grown accustomed to in them had been replaced by a kind of vulnerable consternation.
“How’re they treating you?” I asked. “You eating?”
“When I have to.”
“Food all right?”
“Lousy.” He grimaced. “Lukewarm mush.”
“All right.” I nodded in what I hoped was an encouraging way. “They at least getting you out of this bed?”
“PT tries.” His shrug was dismissive. “Twice a day. Uses a guide belt to get me standing up with a walker, like I’m some kind of invalid.” He paused. “Pain in the ass.”
“Step at a time, I guess.” I tried to keep my voice light.
“And I haven’t brushed my damn teeth since I got here.”
I was pretty certain that was an exaggeration, but said, “I can give you a hand… if you want.”
Another unenthusiastic shrug followed, but he said, “Someone moved my toiletry kit into the bathroom.”
“Not a problem.”
I got what was needed. After I returned, I handed him his dripping toothbrush and held the same empty basin under his chin. He took a long time brushing, then spit into the basin but sprayed some on his gown, which I did my best to wipe off with another tissue.
As I was storing his things away in the bathroom, a voice from the doorway said, “Good morning, Dr. Taylor. We’re on rounds. All right if we come in for a few moments?”
I came back in the room and found a quintet of lab-coated men standing at the foot of the bed. The one in the middle said, “I’m Dr. Faust, the attending today.” He regarded me and asked, “This a friend of yours?”
“Neighbor,” Dr. Taylor said.
“Okay if we speak with him here?”
Dr. Taylor grunted an ascent.
Dr. Faust glanced quickly between us, then said, “Well, I’m afraid we have some unfortunate news. Remember those labs that concerned us a couple days ago? Well, oncology reviewed your PET scan results from yesterday, and it appears your cancer may have returned and spread to a few lymph nodes.”
Silence filled the room as I watched Dr. Taylor’s eyes go glassy. He blinked down at the lap table and mumbled, “Spread.”
“Of course, we’ll have to biopsy them to be sure,” Dr. Faust told him.
My throat had tightened again. I cleared it and said, “I think I should allow you all some privacy.”
Like I had on the previous visit, I gave Dr. Taylor’s good leg a quick pat, then hurried out into the hallway. I made it as far as the bank of elevators at its end before collapsing on a bench there and clasping my head in my hands. I’d gone numb all over. Perhaps five minutes passed during which I was only vaguely aware of sounds and movements around me before I texted Matt four words: Your dad needs you.
***
When I got home, I had a quick lunch, then resumed work repainting my bedroom. It had only been a couple years since I’d last done that, but it was something to fill the time, another in a long line of small projects I concocted to keep busy. Unlike Dr. Taylor, I’d never been much of a reader, and there was only so much television I could stomach at one time. I kept a playlist of reggae music going while I painted, which I generally found upbeat and uplifting, although not so much that afternoon.
When I finished, I stored away supplies, then replaced the few photos I kept of my wife and I on my bedstand. I lingered over the one from our wedding, whisking dust away from the glass with my thumb; I could hardly believe we’d been that young once with a future that seemed so unbridled with possibility. We’d met as first-year teachers at the elementary school where we both eventually retired. We weren’t able to have children and had no real extended family to speak of, so became just about everything to each other. At least, she was to me; I missed her badly.
Matt called while I was counting out my nighttime heart meds. “So, hey,” he said. “Wanted to thank you for the heads up. Just got home from the hospital.” I listened to him exhale. “What a shitshow.”
“Tough sledding,” I said. “That’s for sure.”
“And it gets worse. Doc told me they’re also concerned about circulation to his other foot now. May need to lose that one, too.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Wish I wasn’t.” He blew out another long breath. “When’s it going to end?”
His tone made something inside me quicken towards anger. Before I could decide otherwise, I said, “Pardon me, but you almost sound exasperated… like you’re fed up with him.”
He didn’t reply right away. I could hear children’s animated banter in the background. The sound of a door closing shut that off abruptly. Thirty seconds of silence ensued until Matt spoke again.
“Listen,” he said. “My relationship with my father is… complicated.” He paused. “If I’m being honest, there was never much warmth in that house next to yours. Not a whole lot of love lost.”
When only more silence followed, I said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, well.” A third exhale escaped him. “Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for the heads up, give you an update on things.”
“Sure. Keep me posted… if you will.”
“You bet.” The line went still again until his voice quickened with urgency as he said, “There’s no fucking way he could go through more chemo and radiation. And how the hell does someone manage with two stumps for feet? He can barely see or hear anymore. What in God’s holy name does he have left to live for?”
I let a beat pass before I said, “Not sure how to answer that.”
“Me either.” Then, more hushed, he repeated, “Me either.” A child’s aggravated shout came from the background. “Need to go see what my kids are fighting about.”
“Of course.”
He ended the call. I set the phone down next to my pill bottles and stared out the kitchen window where sprinklers had begun shooting graceful arcs of water over the back yard. If someone had asked me Matt’s last question about myself, I wasn’t certain I could have come up with a better answer.
***
Dr. Taylor was sleeping again when I visited the next morning. I sat with the bag I’d brought in a plastic chair at his bedside watching his chest rise and fall in shallow rhythm. His nurse woke him twenty minutes or so later to take his vital signs, and he didn’t seem surprised to find me beside him. He hmphed at me after the nurse left, rummaged under his covers until he found the remote, then raised the head of his bed until he was almost in a sitting position.
I set my bag on the lap table in front of him and said, “Brought you something.”
I watched his eyebrows knit. “What is it?”
“Here.” I reached into the bag and took out the old portable CD player and earbuds I’d dug out of my garage along with the book on disc that I’d checked out of the library for him. I’d attached hunks of different colored duct tape to the on/off switch and the volume controls.
“So you can read,” I told him. “I looked over the books you had on your living room table. Saw that you like poetry, so I got you some selected poems of Robert Frost. Read by the author himself.” I opened up the case close to his face and took out the disc. “See? It’s easy to work. Watch.” I slipped it into the player, closed the lid, plugged in the earbuds, then took one of his hands in my own. He leaned forward as I moved his fingers over the controls. “Regular gray color for on/off,” I told him. “Red for louder volume, blue for less. Try it.”
Uncertainty still masked his face, but he fit in the earbuds and pushed the gray taped button, then adjusted the volume. A hint of smile creased his lips. He listened for close to a minute, then stopped the disc, removed the earbuds and looked at me. “Well,” he mumbled. “I’ll be damned.”
“Kinda surprised me that you’re a poetry guy.”
He shrugged, then ran his hand across the top of the player with something akin to reverence. Gazing down at it instead of at me, he said quietly, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. And I returned those library books for you.”
He nodded some more until his nurse returned and informed him that transport would be coming in a few minutes to take him for his biopsy, to which he responded with a single, shorter nod. His expression was almost identical to the one Matt wore when he told me what the paramedics had explained to him.
“So,” I said, “what’re you thinking about the biopsy?”
He gave another small shrug.
I let a little more stillness pass before I asked, “And if it’s positive, will you agree to more treatments?”
He looked over at me with a doe-like gaze and nodded again.
“What about losing your other foot?”
“I’ll do that, too, if I need to.”
“Then what?”
Dr. Taylor licked his lips and made his same, unfamiliar chewing motion. His eyes grew moist before he said, “I want to go home.”
“Not much waiting for you there.”
“I know that.” I watched his eyes well up further until they turned my way, and in not much more than a whisper, he said, “But I’m terrified of the alternative. I don’t want to die.”
Something jarred loose inside me, and I heard myself say, “I understand… I do.”
A few moments later, two orderlies appeared in the open doorway, one pushing a wheelchair. I wondered what they saw there: one old guy and another nearly ancient staring silently at each other. The orderly with the wheelchair said, “We’re ready for you, sir.”
Dr. Taylor kept looking at me and asked, “You drink coffee?”
“I do.”
“Filtered?”
I nodded.
“Spread the grounds around the base of my roses.” His chewing motion had increased and his gaze seemed almost pleading. “Mix them into the soil. Would you do that?”
I took his hand, squeezed it, nodded again.
“Okay,” Dr. Taylor turned towards the orderlies and told them, “Let’s go.”
***
My house seemed even emptier than usual when I got back and let myself inside. I sat at the kitchen table and counted out my mid-day heart meds. A routine echocardiogram earlier that year had unexpectedly indicated a reduced ejection fraction in my left ventricle, so I’d been referred to a heart failure specialist who’d started me on a cocktail of meds he hoped would progress that function. My last follow-up echo had shown some improvement, but not yet an adequate amount, so it was still to be determined whether I’d need surgery to have a defibrillator implanted. My mother had to have one of those towards the end, which I suppose prolonged her life to some extent… how much was anyone’s guess. Thinking of that in the wake of my hospital visit made a chill crawl through me, and I suddenly felt as if was falling in a dark, bottomless well.
I did my best to shake that away, swallowed down my pills with the dregs in my coffee mug, then consulted my “to-do” list. Another painting project was listed next, followed by the replacement of a ceiling fan. I couldn’t face either, so removed the filter canister from the coffeemaker instead and carried it out front to our rose beds.
I used my fingertips to mix the coffee grounds around both the base of Dr. Taylor’s roses and my own, then admired the yellow and white buds hovering above me ready to burst under a cornflower blue sky. When I heard the front gate next door click open, I struggled to my feet. Matt shut the gate behind him, his free arm clutching a sweatshirt and sweater, then started down the walkway until he halted when he came abreast of me.
“Oh, gosh… didn’t notice you there.” He adjusted the garments against his chest. “Stopped by for a couple things to bring my dad. Been complaining he’s cold all the time.”
I nodded. “I was just there with him. He was being taken for his biopsy.”
“Yeah… that.” Matt’s lips pressed into a thin line. “So, what we talked about on the phone last night… I’ve been giving that some more thought.” He paused, squinting a little in the bright sunlight. “Been thinking it might be time to get hospice involved.”
We regarded each other like statues for several long moments until I shook my head and said, “He isn’t ready.”
“Come again?”
“He’s not ready for that. He just isn’t. Not yet.”
Matt gave a slow, deliberate nod that appeared practiced and said, “Duly noted.”
For the first time, I noticed a touch of gray in Matt’s goatee as well as the hair above his ears. I supposed he was probably in his early fifties, perhaps a dozen years away from considering things like retirement and declining health himself. But that act in life’s play was still to come for him, as was the one I was negotiating in a way that seemed so ominous to me just then, or the final curtain call his father was facing alone in the hospital at that moment. A dog barked nearby, and another further away answered it.
Matt gestured with the garments he held towards his car at the curb. “Well, better get these over to him.”
I nodded myself and tried to fill my eyes with something like warmth. But I don’t think I was able to do that because he gave no reaction to whatever he saw there. Instead, he just walked resolutely to his car and drove away. After he disappeared, I brushed my hands together and fixed my attention on the distinctive winter pruning marks still gracing Dr. Taylor’s rose branches… so perfectly diagonal, so carefully placed, so precisely considered, so full of hope for another spring he knew was soon to come.
Image by Earl Wilcox on unsplash.com, licensed under CC 2.0.
- Not Ready Yet - July 24, 2026