Walking on stage half-blinded by lights and full of nerves, Taylor Kinkead couldn’t feel more at home. The audience breaks into laughter as she gets water dumped on her, nags her apathetic husband or simply makes a face. But after the curtain closes and the nerves die down, Taylor’s memory of her mother surfaces amidst the excitement and energy backstage.

Before every theater performance Taylor writes her mom’s initials and the date of her birth somewhere on her body where her costume will cover.

“I put the date of her birth but not the date of her death to keep her in spirit,” Taylor said. “I guarantee if I forget to write her name before a show something is going to go wrong.”

Taylor was six-years-old when her mother was murdered during a home invasion in her hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Three days later, on a hot day in May, Chip Kinkead, Taylor’s father, sat her down on their back patio to deliver the undeliverable news.

“She’s an old soul,” Chip said. “She grew up when she was six-years-old. She grew up at the funeral.”

Taylor was about to enter first grade, and the new trauma of life without a mom left her falling behind. She was expected to know how to read at a basic level like the rest of the kids, but out-of-school counseling and her inability to concentrate held her back.  

“I shut down and I couldn’t retain anything in school,” Taylor said. “When I came to Kirkwood in second grade [the teachers] really stepped up and I caught up by the time I was supposed to be in third grade.”

However, moving to Kirkwood didn’t magically make her home life stable. Soon after they moved, her father fell ill and was unable to care for Taylor. She moved in with her grandmother, and later with her aunt and her two cousins.

Taylor’s cousin, Logan Furey, senior, said Taylor has been like a sister to him and he enjoyed the times when Taylor lived with his family. He said while he does see how hard it was for Taylor growing up without a mom, she has had a positive mentality about it all.

“She takes everything in her stride,” Furey said. “She has more of a survivor mentality than that of a victim.”

Taylor will pursue acting and television writing next year at Columbia College Chicago.

“My mom would be proud of the fact that I’m choosing to go to college instead of running off to L.A,” Taylor said.

While Taylor worries about job security in the field of television/film after college, pursuing a degree lessens these fears.

“Coming out of college I hope to be a working actor or a writer for a comedy series or SNL,” Taylor said. “Down the line I would love to be a drama teacher.”

Chip said he’s proud of his daughter’s plans to pursue what she loves. He said she has her mother’s sense of humor, which translates on stage when he watches her perform.

“I love to watch her act,” Chip said. “Except when she does emotional scenes. It just reminds of past [memories] concerning her mom. It takes me back to the dark places when she was a little girl.”

With graduation right around the corner, Taylor said she can’t help but think about how her mother won’t be in the stands at Chaifetz.

“Every milestone I hit is a new reminder,” said Taylor. “It really hits my family. I don’t really feel it until I see them looking at me, and [they tell me] they see so much of my mom in me.”