The time came and I took my place at the front of the room. Liz’s uncles said a few words for the God-fearing folks in the room before relinquishing the microphone to me. I stood there, clutching the sides of the wooden podium, staring down at nothing, and after a few seconds I looked up. All of the pews were filled, and people were sitting on the floor in the aisles, standing in the hallway, spilling out the door and into the parking lot. Our friends, family, coworkers, nurses from the hospital, total strangers—so many people had come, and for the first time in a public-speaking situation, I felt the power of confidence. I guess you could call it a supreme disregard for the feelings of others, but at that moment the only feelings that mattered were mine. Not one person or their opinion could challenge my grief, and it would be impossible for anyone to make me feel worse than I already did. I breathed in the scent of thousands of flowers, their combination creating the kind of amalgam that is present only at flower shops, weddings, and funerals.
“I’m just gonna say what all of you are thinking: this fucking sucks.”
After spitting out that first thought, I felt totally at ease. The words flowed from me as if they were the only words I knew: I talked about the way Liz’s smile lit up every room she entered, the way she looked at me with her coruscating blue eyes, and the way she didn’t take shit from anyone. I talked about our amazing travels together, including the trips to Peru, India, Nepal, Greece, and Mexico. I told everyone about the great sense of accomplishment we felt when we had purchased our first house together just ten months earlier, and the excitement we felt about bringing Madeline into the world. I talked about my fears of raising our daughter alone. Mostly I just talked about how much I would miss having Liz in my life. As I spoke, everyone stared at me, seemingly holding their breath, waiting for me to stop talking before they exhaled. At one point I broke down in tears, and was joined at the front of the room by my brothers, dad, and stepdad. They passed the microphone around, telling their own favorite stories about Liz and giving me a break from baring my soul.
My brother David was the last to speak. “Matt and I are ten years apart, and since I was a little kid I’ve only known Matt and Liz, Liz and Matt. She was as much my sister as Matt is my brother.” He paused for a second. “I’ve dated a lot of girls in my life, and not one of them has been half as great as Liz. I hope that someday I can find the kind of love that these two shared.”
From the crowd, someone shouted out, “What’s your number?” It was Annie, one of Liz’s friends from college, making me laugh as she always managed to do. I’m sure there were some who found her words inappropriate, but they were exactly what I needed to hear. I’ll forever be thankful to her for doubling me over in laughter during one of the most difficult moments of my life.
After that, I invited Liz’s friends and family to join me at the front of the room to share their memories of her, too. It seemed like the service had been going on for five minutes, but when I looked at my watch—the watch Liz had given to me as a wedding gift, a watch I rarely wore—I realized I had been standing there, talking, listening, crying, and laughing, for over an hour. I had always felt that funerals, like weddings, should be short affairs, so after a few more words, I thanked everyone and invited them back to my house for a celebration. Before leaving, I made my way to one of the photo boards, grabbed a picture of a pregnant Liz happily pointing at her round belly in our backyard, and tucked it in the inside pocket of my suit coat.
Fifteen minutes later I stood in front of my house, watching people walk through our yard holding paper plates sagging under the weight of the food and red plastic cups filled with beer and wine. I couldn’t help but think that Liz would be proud if she could see this, as one of the big reasons we bought this house was because she wanted to entertain and throw dinner parties in our yard. Here we were, my family, her family, and our friends from all around the country having a huge party in honor of Liz, but it made me sick to my stomach to know that she was missing from the event. I made my way from person to person, giving and receiving hugs, and patting my stomach to indicate that I was full each time someone tried to make me eat something. Day five with persistent nausea, day five without food. I felt like I might never be able to eat again, but I was okay with that because I had lost enough weight to make my suit fit for the first time in over a year.
I was thankful that so many people stopped by the house, but the only person I really wanted to be with—who I could be with—was Madeline. I hated that she had missed her own mother’s funeral, but there was no other option. She was not ready to come home from the hospital and, according to the doctors, might not be for another seven weeks. I grew more and more anxious to see her as the crowd began to disperse. I pulled A.J. aside. “I’ve got to go see Madeline.” I took him up on his offer to drive me back to the hospital, sneaking away from the people drinking in my back yard.
Still in my suit and tie, I walked through the hospital to the NICU. A few minutes later I was sitting in the now-familiar blue chair, staring at Madeline’s yet unopened eyelids. I rocked back and forth, soothing myself as much as I soothed her. The nursery shades were open, and through the window I saw a few friends who had stopped by the hospital on their way out of town. I let them snap some photos before I asked one of the nurses to close the shades for me. “I’d like a few minutes alone with Madeline,” I said.
With as much privacy as we could get in a room full of nurses and sick babies, I whispered to Madeline some of the stories I had shared at the funeral. While she fell asleep in my arms, I told her how much her mom loved her and promised to give her the best life I possibly could. I held her for a few minutes before returning her to her incubator, thanked the nurse, and made my way to the door.
As I reached to push it open, I remembered the photo in the pocket of my suit. I turned back toward Madeline, stopping at the doctor’s desk to get a piece of tape. I opened up the incubator’s arm holes and reached in to tape the photo of Liz inside. I pulled my hand out, then kissed the tips of my fingers two times, reached back in, and gently touched Madeline on the forehead. “One kiss from me, and one from your mother.”
Part II
Chapter 12
excitement.
fear.
happiness.
sadness.
dread.
confidence.
i felt all of that
when we walked up the stairs
to our house.
It must have looked odd, a grown man sitting in a wheelchair, a newborn baby in a car seat on his lap, being wheeled out of the hospital. A woman, presumably the mother, walks ahead of them, snapping photos. I’d been spending all of my time, awake and asleep, at the hospital for over five weeks at this point, and I’d seen countless new moms in the exact same position I was in.
“Did you see the nasty look that old lady just gave me?”
“I did,” Anya said, laughing.
“She must think I’m the biggest asshole in the world.”
I hadn’t given it much thought, but I always assumed that the wheelchair exit had something to do with the new mother’s inability to walk out of the hospital on her own. What I couldn’t figure out is why I had to be pushed out of the hospital.
“What’s with the wheelchair?” I asked the NICU nurse, as I complied with her directions and sat down.
She explained that it was done for liability reasons. Apparently the safest way for a baby to leave the hospital was in someone’s lap in a wheelchair. I had to laugh. The hospital staff didn’t trust me to walk out of the building, but they were going to let me take my daughter home? Sitting there, I wondered if this was the same wheelchair that should have delivered Liz safely to our baby exactly two weeks ago today.
After saying good-bye to the NICU staff, I asked the nurse to push me around the hospital so I could show Madeline off to all of the friends I’d made during my time here. We stopped by the high-risk ward to say good-bye to Liz’s nurses and went to the cafeteria a
nd coffee shop to thank the staff for taking such good care of my family.
My dad pulled my car up to the entrance of the hospital just as the sliding glass doors opened. After she pushed us through the doors and onto the sidewalk, the nurse patted me on the back, making it apparent that I had been granted the freedom to walk and carry my baby. I stood up, both hands squeezing the handle on the car seat as if loosening my grip meant that my daughter would somehow disappear from my world. My eyes adjusted to the sunlight and I looked up at the sky. I pulled the shade of the car seat over Madeline, knowing that Liz would have been concerned about the sun hitting our baby’s bright white skin for the first time. I turned around, said good-bye to the nurse, and walked toward my car to secure Madeline into it for the first time. I was worried that I had installed it incorrectly, so I gave the car seat a few gentle wiggles before feeling fully satisfied that I’d successfully gotten the thing in, and went around to the driver’s side. Dad and Anya would follow us home in their own cars.
This day had come much more quickly than I had anticipated. Even though I spent a ton of time learning how to feed, burp, change, and even perform CPR on Madeline, I didn’t even feel close to ready to bring her home. Since the day she had been born, I’d been told that Maddy might end up staying in the hospital until her actual due date—seven weeks later. Now she was coming home after only fourteen days, barely bigger than she’d been at birth: just over four pounds.
Sure, I was looking forward to bringing her home with me and getting her out of the hospital, but I needed more time to get ready for her arrival. When the NICU doctor told me that she was being discharged, I presented the hospital staff with every excuse I could think of to delay the inevitable.
She doesn’t have any diapers at home.
I don’t have a car seat for her.
My dad is painting my house.
I don’t have any smoke detectors in the house.
Are you sure she’s ready?
Are you sure I’m ready?
These weren’t actually excuses; they were truths. Well, the ones about the car seat and the smoke detector weren’t really true, but I thought they were the best shot I had at buying a few more days.
“All new parents have doubts,” one of the NICU nurses reassured me, which of course, I knew. But my doubts were a little more pronounced than most. The nurse knew about Liz’s death, but she failed to realize that I wasn’t emotionally stable enough to grieve for my wife and take care of our newborn. Still, she insisted that Madeline would be going home with me that day.
I took my appeal to the NICU doctor on call. “There’s no medically necessary reason to keep her here,” he explained. “The sooner you can get her home, the better. The most dangerous place for a baby is in the hospital, but if you really think you need it, I can buy you one more day.”
The most dangerous place for a baby is in the hospital? I could think of several places that had to be more dangerous than a hospital: a lion’s den, Skid Row, the middle of the 110 freeway, and my not-yet-baby-proofed house.
I left the jokes in my head, figuring that this was not the time to demonstrate that I still had a sense of humor. I had hoped that by the time Madeline was ready to come home I would have the confidence and knowledge to deal with everything that came along with her. Two weeks in the hospital with the aid of doctors and nurses had taught me a lot, but I knew that one more day wasn’t going to give me all of the answers. Hell, one more year wasn’t going to get me where I hoped I’d be. When Liz was alive, I never doubted the fact that I’d be a great dad with her help. But after she died, I started to worry that I was going to fail her and our baby. I was convinced that I didn’t have any sort of inborn abilities to raise a child successfully.
And apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. While my family and friends seemed confident that I was up to the challenge, encouraging me as if simply telling me I’d do well with Madeline meant that I actually would, others were not so sure. A few days after Liz died, a woman saw my mom crying outside the window of the NICU.
“Is your baby okay?” she asked.
“Oh, that’s my granddaughter,” said my mom. “She’s doing great.”
My mom—always one to strike up conversations with strangers—volunteered the entire story. When she finished, the woman, stone-faced, asked, “Is your son going to give the baby up for adoption?”
When I heard the story, I was furious. Give her up for adoption? What the fuck is wrong with people?
This woman’s reaction and many others left me with the rankling feeling that I had something to prove. Not just to those close to me, but also to the world, because I knew I would forever be judged as being incapable, if not totally incompetent—unless I was great. I had to be better than great. I was going to be the best fucking father there ever was.
And that was my promise to myself and to Madeline.
I pulled out of the hospital driveway and headed toward the freeway, completely alone with Madeline for the first time. No doctors, no nurses, no friends, no family. I thought about how this moment should have gone. Liz should have been in the back—one hand on the car seat, the other hand making sure Madeline’s head wasn’t bouncing around—telling me to be gentler as I downshifted. She should have been here, cooing at our daughter and relaying her every reaction to me. But my wife isn’t here, I thought, snapping back to reality.
There were several other routes home I could have chosen to take, but I felt compelled to drive past where Liz’s funeral had been held—I don’t know if I was delusional or just feeling sadistic. As soon as I saw the parking lot, I began crying and shaking uncontrollably. If this wasn’t a kick to the nuts, I don’t know what would have been. Driving under the influence of irrepressible grief was a lot like what it must feel like to drive drunk. I was dizzy and couldn’t see straight. I struggled to regain my composure, gripping the wheel as tight as I could, trying to keep my car headed in a straight line, and doing my best not to get pulled over.
I managed to make it into our neighborhood without incident, and as I drove up the big hill leading to our house, there it was: Liz’s car, parked in its usual spot. Just like every time I had pulled up to the house in the last two weeks, I felt the excitement in my chest that came when I realized Liz was home before me. And every time, it took a second for my brain to catch up with my heart, and then the feeling disappeared as quickly as the exhale from her last breath. I backed my car up to park and felt the resistance of an object behind me.
Fuck. I hit Liz’s car. I’d parked here hundreds of times, and I’d never hit it before. My heart started racing immediately, and with one quick movement I unbuckled my seat belt and lifted myself out of my seat, arching my back to assess the damage I’d done to my child. She was expressionless and in no obvious pain; relief blanketed my body. I knew I was being ridiculous—the impact was barely noticeable—but I was convinced that the slightest misstep would forever damage Madeline. And I would be the only one to blame if something went wrong.
I pulled the car forward a few inches, finally putting it into park just as my dad and Anya both arrived. I would have been fucking mortified if they had witnessed the collision—I didn’t want to put any doubt into the minds of some of my most ardent supporters. I walked around my car to open the back door, and after a few seconds of fumbling for the car seat release, Madeline was out. I felt terrible about hitting Liz’s car. She would have been pretty pissed at me if she had witnessed it. Then I felt sad that I’d no longer have her there to be angry with me for doing stupid shit like bumping her car with mine.
I carried Madeline to the front door, and the instant we walked into the house, it felt different—it felt better. It was less lonely now with Madeline. I’d been in and out of my house several times in the past two weeks, and no matter how many people stood in the living room or the office or the kitchen with me, and no matter who the people were, the house seemed empty. I could feel Liz’s absence, the gravity of her death
weighing heavily on my mind and in my heart, but with Madeline next to me, the house felt alive. And so did I, because now that she was home with me, it was time to start living life with my beautiful baby girl.
Getting her safely home felt like a great accomplishment to me. Despite the smallness of the task, my confidence was boosted by this feat; I was now just a little bit surer that I could handle the job of being a single parent.
At the time of Liz’s death, I had worked for Yahoo! for almost six years. The day after she died, I received a call from my department’s HR representative. She expressed her sympathy and told me that everyone there was thinking about Madeline and me. “Matt, please don’t worry about work. I’ll call you in a couple of weeks and we can talk about your plans for the future.”
That next conversation never happened, though, because I got a different phone call from the vice president of my department, who offered me an indefinite leave from my job to help me deal with Liz’s death and to spend time at home with Madeline. “Matt, we’re going to treat this situation as if you are working from home. Our only concerns are you and Madeline, so take as much time as you need and we’ll do our best to keep you from having to deal with disability insurance or any of that other stuff.”
I was blown away. Without his saying it, I knew that this was a decision he came to without consulting any employee handbook; it was done out of the kindness of his heart, because as a married father, he could actually imagine himself in my shitty situation, and this was the only possible way he could help me. The only other people who knew about the arrangement were the HR representative and the senior director of my department. I was so thankful for their decision, but I wondered how much time I could take off without appearing to take advantage of their generosity. Even if I lived another ninety years and kept Yahoo! hanging on the line that entire time, I would never be over Liz’s death. I decided to take it day by day and worry about nothing but Maddy and me. I had no idea when I’d consider working again, but I knew I’d return someday.
Two Kisses for Maddy Page 10