The night began with a moment of silence. What followed was an evening of emotion — both laughter and crying — to both mourn and celebrate life.
In remembrance of biochemistry junior Christian Taylor, who died Friday, friends and those impacted by Taylor’s life performed poetry and spoke about his life Sunday at Revolution Café and Bar. A journal was passed around for people to share their thoughts, and donations were collected to minimize hotel, traveling and hospital costs for Taylor’s family.
Madison Parker, president of Mic Check and Class of 2014, said as soon as she heard Taylor was in the hospital, she and Davis Land, Taylor’s roommate and vice president of Mic Check, knew the organization would want to do something for Taylor.
“When we got news of him passing, we just knew that this is what he would have wanted and what he needs,” Parker said. “You know we often call Mic Check a family. We knew kind of as a family, this was a kind of coming together to heal and mourn with each other.”
Land, telecommunication media studies sophomore, said his emotions were varied Sunday, but that seeing the amount of people attend in support of Taylor and his family meant a lot to him.
“I saw people that I had kind of met here before, just him introducing me to bonfire friends or people that he knew from his old dorms and things like that and it was just tremendous and magnificent,” Land said. “I couldn’t of really asked for anything more and I don’t think he could have either.”
Parker said Taylor read poetry almost every week at Mic Check.
“Last week we had a slam, which is competition style poetry, and he ended up taking like top three that night, so he was really involved,” Parker said. “He loved it. He came out once in January and that was his first time to hear about it and he didn’t stop coming.”
Taylor was a poetry screener for The Eckleburg project.
Gabi Aguilar, editor-in-chief of The Eckleburg Project and telecommunication and media studies senior, attended Mic Check and said she thought the memorial was a wonderful way to pay tribute to who Taylor was and what he was all about.
“He was so passionate about art and expression and creativity and he was just a beautiful, beautiful mind,” Aguilar said. “And Mic Check was something that he was actively involved with besides Eckelburg project, and he was very well respected in the art community and loved.”
Throughout the night, students and people who knew Taylor read poems and shared stories. Parker read a poem, which she wrote soon after Taylor died.
“I think for me I was thinking about death in general and how when tangible things break, you have the tangible remnants of them, you can hold them, you have like a keepsake from it almost, but death doesn’t do that,” Parker said. “You can’t physically hold onto him, but there’s remnants of [Taylor] here though and whether it just the impact on our lives or the memories we share of him.”
For many of Taylor’s friends, the memorial was the first chance to remember Taylor together, Aguilar said.
“It’s almost accepting of what has happened,” Aguilar said. “I think a lot of us are kind of in shock. It was something that was unfathomable. [Taylor] was such a light and to know now that there was something in there that we didn’t see — I think that just makes us ache a little bit more.”
People from all facets of Taylor’s life attended the memorial Sunday evening.
“He was hilarious and I remember no matter what kind of day he had, I could just know that he was going to make me laugh to some capacity,” Parker said. “And to know that even when he was going through stuff, he was putting a smile on people’s faces because he valued people so much and he valued friendships and kindness.”
Veronica Brady, one of Taylor’s close friends from high school, who performed a poem about growing up with Taylor, said she thought the night was beautiful.
“I couldn’t decide if I was crying because I was happy or crying because I was so sad, or crying because of both. But it was absolutely beautiful and gave me so much hope — just the amount of people that came — they came for him. He would of absolutely loved this and I feel like we tried our absolute best to mimic his energy to bring it out”
Photo by Tanner Garza