Two Kisses for Maddy

by Matthew Logelin

  Despite being born seven weeks early, Madeline’s measurements were in the average range on the growth charts at her three-month appointment, though the NICU doctors had warned me that might not happen until she was two years old. Madeline’s pediatrician, Dr. Jennifer Hartstein, would ask me all sorts of questions to get a clear understanding of Madeline’s physical and mental development, and when the appointment was finished, she would offer a simple but effective “Matt, you’re doing a great job.” Considering how out of control my life seemed after Liz’s death, it was incredible for me to know that I was succeeding at the most important job in the world—a job I didn’t know I had been so well prepared for—or prepared for at all.

  These day-to-day experiences, early successes with Madeline, and praise from real experts led to an interesting transition in my blog. There were people who’d been reading my blog since Madeline’s birth, many of whom had found it because they were pregnant. By now, some of their babies had been born, and with infants of their own at home, they didn’t have a clue what they were doing. So they turned to me, a guy they knew had been through it.

  Everyone assumes—and society encourages—that all women are experts at being mothers. What I found, however, was that women are just as fucking clueless as men are; they’re just more willing to ask for and accept help. Here was a man—me—who just months earlier had no goddamned clue what he was doing, and now I was giving advice to many of the same women who had given it to me.

  Not that what I was offering was really “advice.” I would never tell anyone how they should do things. All I could offer was my own perspective: “Here is how I did it. It may not work for you, but this was my experience.” For the first time since I had begun talking to other moms and dads, I felt that I could hold my own in any parenting conversation that arose. In fact, I not only felt as if I was equal to the rest of them, but I also felt a little bit like being a single father somehow gave me a leg up. I was, after all, doing at least twice as much work as I would have been if Liz were alive, and I was doing it as a stay-at-home dad. If that didn’t make me an expert, I don’t know what would.

  Many questions also came my way regarding the death of a spouse. After all, fathering a newborn was only half my story. People wrote to find out how they could help in the immediate aftermath of a death in the family. Asking the bereaved what they need may be kind and well-intentioned, but ultimately it didn’t help me at all. When Liz died, all I knew was that I wanted my wife back, and that that was not possible. I didn’t know that I needed to have the floor swept. I couldn’t recognize that there was no food in the refrigerator. I had no idea that my mail was piling up and I was probably not paying my electricity bill. My most common advice for these people was anti-advice—what not to do. “Don’t touch anything in the house. Don’t throw anything away because who knows what she may be attached to. Don’t wash the sheets, because maybe she wants to be able to smell her husband’s cologne awhile longer.” I told people to find what little tasks and chores needed doing and to do them without having to ask the surviving partner any questions.

  I also, and without intention, became the voice for a small community of young widows and widowers. They heard about my blog and began writing to me almost daily, and I became great friends with most of them as we shared our experiences via e-mail and phone. It was a bit like the parenting community that I’d found myself a part of, but this group was much smaller and more intimate. It was one thing to bond over the birth and raising of a child, but it was another to find an incredible group of widowed people under eighty years old, all of us united by the worst moments of our lives.

  Liz’s death had turned me into an uncertified expert in death and dealing with it, which was both a blessing and a curse. The blessing was that I could offer a truly informed opinion based on personal experience, rather than the kind of bullshit advice that spews forth from the countless grief books that line the shelves of every store. The curse? Well, to be confronted with so much death and sadness on such a regular basis really took a toll on me emotionally. Every time I heard another heartrending story about a husband dying, I was transported back to those seconds just after I realized Liz had died, and the hideous feeling that came over me every time was as real as it had been on that day.

  Hearing these stories was awful, but I had to think that I was helping these women in some small way. And the truth was, they were helping me, too. Realizing that I wasn’t alone in my sadness was a valuable tool for fighting through it, because in talking to this group I understood that there was no such thing as moving on after what we experienced. With each other’s help, though, we could continue to move through. Without their companionship, wicked jokes, and sarcasm, I wouldn’t have laughed nearly as much.

  Just a little while after I brought Madeline home, three of my best guy friends from Minnesota offered to come out to Los Angeles to stay with Madeline and me. They coordinated their trips so as not to overlap, ensuring that I would have maximum time for help and company. A.J. came first. When I picked him up from the airport, I kind of got the feeling something was different, and it became obvious what it was within the first few hours of his arrival. He hadn’t told me, but I was positive. My suspicions wouldn’t be confirmed for another few months, but the questions he asked and the way he interacted with Madeline had me convinced that Sonja was definitely pregnant. A.J. immediately took a very active role in feeding, burping, and changing Maddy—things I didn’t think a childless man would want to do, let alone could do.

  This was not the type of help I had expected. I thought these guys were coming out to Los Angeles to make me laugh, to shoot the shit—mostly to keep my mind off Liz. They’d probably cook and do some other stuff around the house, and only help me with Madeline if I asked them to. I was sure they’d never even touch a diaper, but it became apparent very quickly that I had assumed incorrectly.

  When Steve arrived a week later, he immediately told me that his wife, Emily, was due to give birth within the next few months. My theory was spot-on. Here were guys with whom I used to speak only about booze, sports, and music, and now they wanted to discuss the best methods for preventing diaper rash.

  While he and I were out one day, we sat on a bench watching the world go by. Two women walked by, each of them pushing a baby stroller. We looked at one another and Steve blurted out, “See that stroller on the left?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s the stroller Emily and I registered for.”

  “Yeah. I know Liz looked at that stroller as well—” I interrupted myself midsentence. “Jesus. Do you realize how fucking old we are?”

  “What do you mean?” Steve asked me.

  “Well, did you see the two women pushing those strollers?”

  “Yeah. They were totally hot.”

  “I know. And all we could talk about was the strollers they were pushing.”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head with mock disapproval of just how adult we’d become since our college years. Steve let out a laugh, then I made a joke about the frozen chocolate-​covered banana he was about to insert into his mouth.

  John was the last to visit. On the way to my house from the airport, I asked up front, “Is Andrea pregnant?”

  “I hope not,” he replied, laughing. “Why?”

  “Just testing a theory,” I explained, then turned the conversation to his upcoming wedding.

  I taught three grown men how to hold, feed, and burp a premature baby—skills that they then demonstrated via videoconference to their impressed (and relieved) women. It was about to become a reality for two of them, and it was kind of awesome to be showing them the way. To be the one who’d already been there.

  They knew they could rely on my experience and probe my ever-growing knowledge base for future use with their own children, and they were determined to learn as much as possible from me before they flew back to Minnesota. And I felt confident that the guidance and practical experience I could give them was t
he real deal. I wasn’t pretending to be a father; I was a certifiable success. I got to be their friend with the baby instead of their friend whose wife had died. It was a relief.

  No matter how eagerly they tried to provide diversions and distractions, though, there were always reminders of Liz. Some of them, like her perfume bottles on the dressers or her shoes in the corner, were constant and to be expected. But others, like the calls my friends made to their ladies before going to bed, made me sick to my stomach; I no longer had Liz to say good night to. But I did have my baby to tuck in every night, and holy shit, was I thankful for that.

  One morning when Steve was still in town, I got out of the shower and heard him call my name from the living room.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Maddy’s fine,” he replied. “Your phone rang, but I didn’t know if I should answer. I let it go to your answering machine.”

  “Shit. You didn’t happen to hear who it was, did you?”

  “United Airlines? Something about your trip to Hawaii?”

  “Are you sure? I’m not going to Hawaii.”

  “I’m pretty sure I heard the automated message say something about an itinerary change for your trip to Oahu.”

  “Fuck. I’m gonna call them.”

  “Do you want to listen to the message?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  What I couldn’t tell Steve was that I was hiding from the answering machine. There was a message somewhere on there from the Los Angeles County Coroner’s office, and I didn’t want to hear it. There was also another message that I’d been avoiding—it was from Liz. She’d left it from the hospital when she was on bed rest. I’d never listened to it, but I knew it was there. I hadn’t heard her voice since the day she died, and as much as I thought I wanted to, I was afraid that if I did, everything would start to seem unreal, as if she were on an extended business trip or something. So I had been avoiding the answering machine altogether.

  I called the airline later that day. “I received a message about an itinerary change. Do you have the details of that?”

  “Yes, Mr. Logelin. It looks like your flight to Oahu on May tenth has been moved up by two hours.”

  “Okay. This may sound strange, but I had no idea that I was going to Oahu. Can you give me any more information about the trip?”

  The agent laughed. “It looks like the flight was booked by Elizabeth Logelin, and was originally scheduled for one year earlier. Elizabeth rescheduled the flight for May tenth, 2008.”

  It all suddenly came back to me. I hung up the phone without saying thank you or good-bye, and instantly fucking lost it. All six feet seven inches of Steve got up off the couch and hugged me, making me feel like I was a child again, back in the arms of my father.

  I sobbed, now remembering everything about this trip. We had booked tickets to Hawaii the year before for a wedding, but we both ended up having to travel for work. Liz rescheduled the trip as a vacation for us, choosing the furthest possible date from the original reservation. This had all happened a few months before we found out Liz was pregnant, and like me, she must have forgotten about it. Madeline’s original due date was May 12, and there was no way we would have been able to travel, even if everything had gone as planned.

  All it took was this one phone call to knock me back down and crush my confidence. All of the positivity I had been building instantly evaporated, and I wondered if I had made any progress at all. My face remained buried in Steve’s chest for what seemed like hours. When I finally pulled myself together, I called Liz’s dad. Before he even had a chance to say hello, I launched into my proposition.

  “Tom, I just got off the phone with United Airlines. Liz and I were supposed to go to Hawaii in May, and I just can’t do it alone. Can we take a trip together? You know, you, Candee, Deb, Maddy, and me? Maybe we can go in a few months for our wedding anniversary or something? I don’t want to be alone, and I can’t be in Minnesota, Los Angeles, or Greece on August thirteenth.” I didn’t take a breath until I’d said it all—it must have been a lot for Tom to take in without warning.

  “Yes,” he responded calmly. “We can do whatever you want, Matt. Let’s talk about this tonight with Candee and we can plan something.”

  That was all I really needed to hear. Later on, we agreed that we would take a trip together on what would have been my third wedding anniversary. I informed Tom and Candee of my self-imposed travel parameters: somewhere outside of the United States, and somewhere none of us had ever visited before. By the next night, we had a flight and a condo booked for a week in Banff. I felt sure that Liz would have been thrilled to know that I planned to spend time with her family. I was just relieved to know that I wouldn’t have to be alone on our anniversary come August.

  Chapter 16

  she’s a little

  too little

  to fly.

  but,

  she won’t be

  alone in her

  bassinet with one of

  those hamster feeders.

  Many of our friends and family had been unable to attend Liz’s funeral in Pasadena and so had been unable to get any sort of closure about her death. What’s more, my decision to have Liz cremated and her remains stored until I decided what to do with them also left people without a permanent place to go to mourn her. Everyone I was now spending time with in Los Angeles—all of Liz’s college and work friends whom I’d rarely spent time with previously—was still devastated. Everyone was still buried in grief. Tom, Candee, and I decided that we should have a second funeral for Liz.

  We would have the service in our home state of Minnesota so that those who hadn’t been able to travel previously would have a chance to say good-bye. The funeral home in Pasadena had sent Liz’s ashes to a funeral home in Milaca, Minnesota, a town that held my family’s roots. It was where my mom was born, and where my grandfather’s hardware store had been.

  Initially, I thought having a second funeral was insane. I understood providing an opportunity for more people to mourn, but I wasn’t ready to stand up and give another fucking eulogy for my wife. The first time I had done it was pure hell, and it would never get easier, even if I did it a thousand times. Besides, who the hell has two funerals? Then my thoughts went to Madeline. Though nothing would bring about closure in her situation—and even if it could, she wouldn’t have any clue what was going on—I couldn’t help thinking that she needed to be at her mother’s funeral.

  I called Dr. Hartstein.

  “I’m flying to Minnesota so we can have another funeral for my wife. I want to bring Madeline with me.”

  “Matt. It’s not a good idea.”

  I knew that was going to be her answer. Maddy wasn’t even supposed to be out of the womb yet, so the notion of taking her on an airplane was kind of absurd. But I kept wondering how I’d someday explain to my daughter that she missed not one but two funerals for her mother. Of everyone whose life Liz had ever touched, the one who would endure her death the longest and hardest would be the child she never held.

  I was also scared shitless about heading to Minnesota without Madeline. It would be my first trip back since last Christmas with Liz, and I knew I’d be confronting a lifetime of memories by returning to our childhood homes. What I needed most was not friends, family, music, or booze. I needed my security blanket. I needed my baby. But faced with the very real prospect of jeopardizing the well-being of my otherwise healthy preemie, I had to heed the doctor’s advice and leave her in Los Angeles. I asked my friends Ben and Dana if Madeline could stay at their house while I was gone. Their first baby had been premature, too, so they would best know how to attend to Madeline’s needs.

  When it was time to send Maddy home with Dana for the three days I would be in Minnesota, I did my best to keep from crying. I wasn’t ashamed to let my tears flow in front of anyone anymore, especially a friend, but I’d recently started to notice how my crying affected those around me, and so I began attempting to hold it
in. My success rate wasn’t 100 percent yet, but I had become rather good at it. I took it as a challenge, and better still, a way to get my mind off of the reason I felt like crying in the first place.

  And oddly enough, I had even started to enjoy it. There was a strange sensation that came along with holding in tears, and it became more and more intense the longer I held them in. As they welled up in my eyes, the bridge of my nose started to tingle, the feeling slowly traveling down to its tip and finally sending pulses of numbness through the rest of my head. I became obsessed with trying to hold on to the feeling as long as possible; at one point I thought about carrying a stopwatch around so I could time myself and see if I could set a record each and every time I was about to cry. That seemed a little crazy, though, so I decided against it.

  Dana’s voice brought me out of my game.

  “Don’t worry, Matt. We’ll take good care of her.”

  “I know you will. In fact, I’m pretty sure you guys will take better care of her than I do.” I’m just really going to miss her, I thought.

  I buckled Maddy into her car seat (now in Dana’s car), gave her two kisses, and whispered, “I love you.” With my palm on the car window, I pushed the door closed. I left my hand there as the car started, still reaching out for my daughter. Even after they disappeared over the hill, I still held my hand out, frozen in place, my feet firmly planted in the grass below. Driving away from me was the only person left in the world who I actually cared about, and I couldn’t believe I was going to be without her for the next three days.

  The tears were welling up again, but this time I didn’t want to play the game. I just let them flow; I knew it would be impossible to stop them. I felt myself sinking into the wet ground outside my house, the moisture and mud soaking through my socks. Shit, I thought. Where the fuck are my shoes? I looked around, hoping that my neighbors weren’t watching. The last thing I needed was for them to know I’d lost my mind.