Kaleena Patrick could’ve scaled that smile to Heaven. No COVID. No Delta variant. No gasping. No pain. Just Taurean Taylor grinning at his phone like it was a winning scratch ticket.
“I didn’t know that they’d been talking for an extended period of time,” Patrick said of her son, Taurean. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, I talk to MPJ all the time.’
“I’m like, ‘What?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah. That’s my friend.’”
He showed her his phone. Yep. That MPJ. The Nuggets’ Michael Porter Jr., texting from Portland.
See, on May 16, 2021, Porter had drawn up the perfect play. The day after the Nuggets’ regular-season finale, he was coming by Aurora to hang out. Taurean, a two-time cancer survivor now wrestling with the coronavirus, just had to hang in there.
“Taurean was so excited,” Patrick recalled. “He was like, ‘Mom, MPJ is going to come see me tomorrow.’
“And he passed away that morning.”
Taurean was 13. His light left us too soon, a story unfinished.
Yet when Kaleena texted the Nuggets forward to thank him, she discovered MPJ was already working on the afterword.
“Taurean passed away this morning …” she thumbed.
“I’m so sorry,” MPJ replied.
“Thank you.”
“I want u to know that this isn’t all there is to life brother. This world is broken, and very hard. God created us to live a short time on this Earth, and go to be with Him forever. Heaven is going to be 1000000 times better (than) Earth, and I just want to let u know that you are God’s son. And the next steps for u are going to be beautiful.
“Sent this text to him. We were texting yesterday. Amazing kid.”
“Thank you so much!!” Kaleena replied. “Most amazing.”
Next day, 11:44 in the morning, another text bwooped in.
“How’re you doing today?” MPJ wrote. “If u need anybody to talk to I’m here.”
He’s been a contact in Patrick’s phone ever since, in good times and bad. Back surgery. Rehab. Minneapolis. Phoenix. Los Angeles. The NBA Finals, which resume Sunday at Ball Arena with MPJ’s Nuggets holding a 1-0 series lead on the Miami Heat.
“(Taurean) was a big fan of mine, he was going through a lot,” Porter told The Post last week.
“Sometimes, I think connecting with kids that are less fortunate than you, who are going through something, not only is a blessing to them, but it also puts perspective into my life. Proper perspective to put things in order.”
“That moment was a gift”
When you ring up John Wampler about the size 14 shoe on his bookshelf, he wants to talk about MPJ’s size 30 heart.
“First of all, this guy’s a class act. The real deal,” Wampler said from Columbia, Mo., not far from the University of Missouri campus where Porter grew up. “I was just in awe as to how much he was the real deal.”
Wampler and his wife, Jennifer, have met plenty of stars over the years, and they can spot a plastic soul from about 15 yards away. The couple are the wind beneath the wings of Lizzy’s Walk of Faith Foundation, named in honor of their late daughter Elizabeth “Lizzy” Wampler. Lizzy passed away in 2018 at the age of 10 after battling osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of bone cancer.
“She had the body of Tinker Bell,” John said. “But she had the spirit of Samson.”
Five springs ago, though, that strength was fading fast. The Wamplers had a confidant in Brad Loos, a former Mizzou assistant men’s basketball coach who’d transitioned into the Tigers’ athletic administration and fundraising side. Loos’ daughter Rhyan had been diagnosed with neuroblastoma at the age of 5, and when he detailed Lizzy’s fight to MPJ and his father, Michael Sr., the pair’s ears perked up.
MPJ was spotted wearing a t-shirt with the word “Lizzy” on the back during Mizzou’s “Rally For Rhyan” game to benefit pediatric cancer research. A March 2018 meeting was arranged at the Wamplers’ home.
“I think someone had texted me,” John recalled, “and asked, ‘Is 5 o’clock a good time?’”
And there he was. No entourage. No media. Just this tall young man on the front porch holding a pair of massive black and gold sneakers and a sliver of hope.
“We were floored,” John said. “He was so engaged, so present. You know how people can be there but they’re also looking at their watch or taking selfies? He didn’t care about any of that. The only thing he cared about, that he focused on, was Lizzy.”
As she lay on the couch, oxygen machine cranking at full blast, the 6-foot-10 Porter got down on one knee to be closer to her eye level.
The brave little girl with the shaved head leaned closer and asked if she could pray for MPJ’s barking back.
“That moment was a gift,” Jennifer recalled.
“I think Michael was sensitive to that gift, and I think Lizzy was, too. And it was just a beautiful moment … Michael wasn’t there for a photo op. Michael was there because he recognized the moment.”
They talked about Heaven, greater purposes and simple gifts. After 20-25 minutes or so, Samson’s strength was on the wane. MPJ posed for pictures and went outside to talk to Daniel Wampler, Lizzy’s then-14-year-old brother, out shooting hoops on the driveway.
“I think the coolest thing about it was, when I talked to him afterward, both his dad and MPJ said Mike got more out of it than Lizzy,” Loos said.
“I think it just humbled Mike and made him realize how fortunate he is. Anytime you see a kid like Lizzy — and she was an amazing, amazing kid — going through what she was going through, it made him realize how fortunate we are. And how blessed we all are.”
Lizzy’s blessings live on. The Walk of Faith Foundation has donated $100,000 for St. Jude Children’s Center in Memphis, where Lizzy spent more than 15 months getting treatment, another $50,000 to families dealing with pediatric cancer and $50,000 more toward osteocarcoma research. Her tumor was donated to research on eight different continents. The foundation’s sixth 5K Walk of Faith is slated for Sept. 16.
“I mean, if you’re not doing things like that when you have a platform like this, I don’t really know why it’s worth it to do what we do,” Porter said of visit to the Wamplers.
“Everyone has their own different way of doing things — maybe it’s giving money to a foundation, or something like that. But for me, connecting with those kids meant a lot to them. And it meant a lot to me.”
John said that Michael’s mother, Lisa, told him later that talking to Lizzy that day gave MPJ more than perspective. It offered him a purpose.
“He wanted to start visiting kids that had cancer,” said John, who kept one of MPJ’s size 14 shoes and gifted the other to Daniel. “He was there to encourage her. But she encouraged him and touched him and gave him a greater purpose, a sense of destiny. And that’s pretty awesome.”
“A lot bigger things than basketball”
To this day, Patrick isn’t sure how MPJ landed Taurean’s phone number. All she knows is that the Nuggets forward had sent over a video message of encouragement in response to her son’s leukemia diagnosis, just 12 days before his 11th birthday.
In 2021, with an assist from Make-A-Wish Colorado, the Nuggets signed Taurean to a ceremonial one-day contract. Because of the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols, Denver players weren’t allowed to interact or meet with her son directly. But MPJ shot a video message for that moment, too.
“He’s so humble. It wasn’t like he did it for the show,” Patrick said. “He just did it out of genuine concern for Taurean. And that’s pretty amazing.”
Patrick said MPJ continues to reach out periodically. She shot over a commendatory text after his Nuggets swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.
“Congratulations on the win,” she tapped. “Thrilled for you guys. Wish my boy was there to see it.”
Mom still has Taurean’s phone. She’s culled a few pictures off the library but says she’s leaving the texts alone, especially the ones from MPJ. How many unfinished stories land a victory parade as an epitaph?
“There (are) a lot of bigger things than basketball,” Porter said. “(Taurean) was dealing with something extreme, and so we connected. He was a big fan of mine, cheering me on at the games. So, yeah. He was a really good kid.”
Takes one to know one.
