“Don’t worry,” she said, “we’ll have plenty more of these.”
At the time I of course believed that she was right, and that I was right to go. But we were both wrong. Last year, while I was in India, Liz spent her birthday with Anya. This year, I would be with Anya, and Liz was dead.
I woke up on September 17 and the world did not end, and I did not fall apart. I just picked up my daughter and fed her and played with her, thinking about her mother a little more than usual. Time passed slowly, and when evening arrived, we went to meet Anya for dinner at the restaurant I had suggested. Perhaps because she had been the last person to spend a birthday with my wife, I wanted Anya to be the one who was there with us that evening.
The restaurant I chose was one of Liz’s favorites, a Japanese barbecue place right near the Wish Trees, a temporary art installation in Pasadena. It seemed as good a day as any to make a wish, even though I believed that wishes didn’t come true and that they certainly were not retroactive. The courtyard was full of these trees, each with hundreds of white tags hanging from the branches—individual wishes. We sat down and I wrote out one wish for Madeline and one for me, and then tied them carefully on a branch. As I watched our wishes dance and spin in the breeze, I looked across the courtyard to the jewelry store where I had purchased Liz’s wedding gift—a beautiful blue sapphire necklace, the stone surrounded by diamonds. When I had first seen that necklace, all I could think of were Liz’s shining blue eyes, and I knew it had to be hers.
Now I was thinking about how thankful I was that she had been wearing it the night our house was burglarized. I decided right then to make good on my promise to replace Liz’s stolen jewelry. We went across the street to Tiffany’s and bought a necklace for Madeline. It was a silver necklace with a bean-shaped pendant—it had been Liz’s favorite piece of jewelry—and with the blue bag hanging from my wrist and my daughter strapped to my chest, we walked to the restaurant and settled in at a table.
We shot the shit while we waited for our food, catching up on what we’d missed since we had last seen each other. Then something occurred to me. “Anya,” I said, “where were you guys last year? What did you do?” Like with our last anniversary, I could not remember what she and Liz had done to celebrate while I was away in India. My mind was a big, swirling blank, and I felt a feverish need to recapture the lost details.
She looked at me. “Here,” she said. “We were here.”
The food came, plates piled high with food covered in miso sauce, and I stared at the strips of thinly sliced beef, at the walls, down at my baby—anywhere but at Anya. I was breathing heavily, doing everything I could to slow my heart rate down. I felt like I was going to vomit and I swallowed hard to keep it from coming up. How in holy hell did I end up at the very place Liz spent her last birthday? It was a good thing I didn’t believe in signs, because if I did, I’d have been scared shitless.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I think so,” I said. “I should feed Maddy.”
Our dinners sat untouched as we focused our attention on Madeline. Anya passed me her bottle, and I settled Madeline in the crook of my arm, holding it for her to drink.
I looked at Anya. “Eat,” I said. “It’s getting cold.”
She picked up her fork. “You eat,” she said.
“When she’s done.”
A few minutes later, Maddy picked up her little hands and grasped the bottle. I let go, lightly, waiting to see what would happen. She had been attempting this trick for weeks, but now the bottle stayed aloft. My daughter was feeding herself. I suddenly imagined the freedom I would have, all of the exciting things I would get to do while she fed herself her lunch, like brush my teeth. Or do the dishes. Or fold some laundry.
“Wow,” said Anya. “Liz would have loved this.”
I nodded. We held up our drinks.
“Happy birthday, Liz,” I said.
“Happy birthday, Liz.”
A few days after Liz’s actual birthday, there was to be a 5K walk/run in Minnesota. Actually, it would be all over the world. I wanted to honor her in a larger way, so through the blog, we’d asked people to start walking or running at 1:00 p.m. in their respective time zones on September 20. The idea was that we’d collectively be running for twenty-four hours straight.
The event had been organized in conjunction with the Creeps, a group of women who had been following my blog from the beginning—my original supporters. They would leave helpful comments, and some of them reached out in more personal ways, too. These women cared about me and they felt protective of me; whenever a “stranger” said something that they deemed offensive, they would descend upon the interloper with a vengeance that was swift and merciless. When one of those interlopers called their interest in me “creepy,” it was all they needed to form a cohesive and loyal group, however different—moms, single women, divorcees, people with children, people without.
When I had visited Minnesota in June, I spent some time with Rachel, a reader who had become a dear friend; after that, she and the other Creeps decided they wanted to raise money for Maddy and me to give us a financial cushion. They asked everyone to donate seven dollars for the 5K, because that was Liz’s favorite number.
This trip back would be my sixth flight with Maddy, and I was getting better at it. I’ll admit that I had a lot of help—there is something about traveling as a single dad that gets you the immediate sympathy vote. A woman can be standing there with two toddlers, four suitcases, an infant, and a cat, and people are kind of like Yeah, who gives a shit? But stick a guy in an airport with a baby and a backpack, and flight attendants and passersby will fall all over themselves to make his life easier. But even without the kind assistance of others, we now had a routine: we cuddled up together in the window seat during takeoffs and tried to nap all the way until the landings. (Usually. When Madeline was fussy I apologized to our seatmates, often offering to buy them drinks). We made it to Minneapolis without incident, and after I picked up a lemonade at the French Meadow in concourse F near Gate 3, we headed to Candee and Tom’s to meet up with the rest of the grandparents.
A few days later I was standing in the wet grass, feeling a little nervous. Running is not my favorite activity, but more than the fear of having a heart attack, it was the location of the run that was getting to me. Lake Calhoun was the obvious and, for everyone else, ideal spot. Minneapolis residents regularly converged upon it in the summer, making parking nearly impossible, though the struggle was always considered worth it, and the paved road around the lake was just about 5K. Liz’s childhood home was on Lake Calhoun.
The day of the run was absolutely gorgeous. It felt like everyone had shown up—guys I’d known since fifth grade, friends from college, even my mom’s hairdresser. We gathered near the volleyball courts, and when we were confident that pretty much everyone had arrived, I stood in front of the crowd to thank them for coming. Minutes later people started moving in groups around the lake.
I had A.J. by my side and Maddy fitted securely into her new jogging stroller, and with my best friend and my best gal, I started to run. The sky was blue, without even a hint of clouds. The sun glinted off the lake. I made it about a quarter of a mile before the running became comically difficult for me. My knees ached and my heart felt as though it were trying to escape my chest, but I pushed on, trying to make it at least halfway around the lake before starting to walk. It should have been muggy, but it wasn’t—it was perfect. A perfect day to remember Liz.
The Calhoun Beach Club was now directly ahead of me, the beautiful brick building that contained so many of my most cherished memories. This was the place that caused me to break down when I was in Minnesota for Liz’s second funeral. All I could think was that she had not reached her thirty-first birthday. I knew I would be seeing this building today, but still I was unprepared. I was trying to combat the emotions I was feeling at the same time I was trying to manage the physical pain I was inflicting upon my body. I tried to f
ocus on breathing, but the pain in my chest made it almost impossible. I tried to focus on the pain in both knees as they absorbed the shock of my feet hitting the pavement below. I tried to focus on anything but the emotional cloud that had begun to engulf me, hoping that the physical pain I felt would distract me from thinking of Liz. I tightened my grip on the stroller and finally slowed to a walk. Fuck it, I thought. I nodded and smiled at my fellow runners to try to let them know that I wasn’t going to drop dead.
I didn’t really see them, though. I couldn’t focus on anything but the Beach Club. As we rounded the northwest corner of the lake, we passed that spot where Liz and I had stared into each other’s eyes, unaware of the photographer taking another close-up shot of us. I felt like I was looking through a window at something that had happened three years before. I saw Liz and me; I saw how happy and how in love we were. I saw how much hope we had for our future.
Then I started jogging again, moving back into the present where Liz was not. But all of these people were here with me running because they cared about my wife, about my daughter and me. I steadied myself with this thought and completed my trip around the lake.
After the run we all hung around for a while. A number of people, friends and strangers, shared their own stories with me. A woman from Florida was telling me that she had come up to see her son, Bob, who lived in Central Minnesota. His wife had died in childbirth.
“He has completely shut down,” she confided. “I don’t know what to do. He lost his job. He won’t leave the house. He doesn’t want to talk to anybody.” She reached out and gripped my arm. “Would you talk to him?” she asked.
In the past months, I’d had many requests to reach out to grieving individuals. I was comfortable giving them my phone number or my e-mail address, but I wasn’t going to knock on anybody’s door and force them to hear my point of view. I’m a guy, not a guru.
“Of course,” I told her. “Of course. I’ll give you my information and you can pass it along to him. Tell him he can call anytime.” I was curious about this man, and sympathetic. I hadn’t encountered that many widowers—there were definitely more women reaching out and getting involved, and many of them were in straits much more dire than mine. Confronting my past on this run brought me back to my own sadness, and now, hearing the stories of others who had faced similarly shitty circumstances, I felt their sadness, too.
As people began moving off toward their cars, I looked back toward the club. I could still see the faint trace of me and Liz, all dressed up for the party she had always wanted. I may have missed her birthday last year, and that was something I was never going to forget. But I had been able to give her the wedding of her dreams, and that counted for something.
Madeline and I had been back in LA for a couple of weeks, enjoying our usual routine of hanging out, when we got a call from Rachel.
“Are you ready to hear how much we made?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m ready.”
“Four thousand four hundred and ten dollars,” she said. “For you guys to use. However you want.”
As soon as Rachel told me the number, I thought of Bob. And I thought of Jackie, whose husband died on the exact same day as Liz, from the exact same thing. I thought of Kim, whose husband died and left her with two young children. I thought of Jen, whose house burned down a few months after her husband died, leaving her a homeless, single mother. Here I was, with Liz’s life insurance payout in the bank for emergencies, my own job at Yahoo! poised to start up again shortly, monthly Social Security checks coming in to help with raising Madeline, and, if worse came to worst, supportive and generous family members. I could afford food. I could afford everything Maddy needed. I could afford records and beer.
So many other people that I had encountered did not have what I did—some of them didn’t even have the basics.
When we started organizing the 5K—when we asked people to donate seven dollars—I hadn’t really thought about the fact that seven dollars times hundreds of people would become a quantifiable amount of money that could be exchanged for goods, services, or whatever else someone in need may require.
I neglected to realize that I was actually going to get a check after the event. My only goal with this 5K was to honor Liz at her birthday. Now that there was a tangible (and significant) sum involved, I was floored, and frankly, I was a little uncomfortable.
“Rachel,” I said, “I can’t accept the money. I want to give it away.”
“To who?” she asked.
I already had a couple of people in mind, I told her. And then I thought about how many more people could use some support—the support of a community as loving as the one that had erupted around me.
“Maybe we should just start a nonprofit,” I said. I was surprised by how quickly the words came from my mouth. I hadn’t even considered doing something like this. In fact, I was totally kidding when I suggested it.
Then Rachel said, “You know, I was thinking the exact same thing.”
Fuck, I thought. I guess we’re going to do this.
Chapter 20
no one to
kiss me on the cheek
while wishing me
a good day
at work.
no one to call
on the way into
the office
with whom i could share
traffic information.
no one to deliver to
me the lunch
i’ve forgotten
on the counter.
shit.
this is all
hitting me and i
haven’t even left the
house yet…
today should be a real
fucking treat.
It was time to get my life together. Realizing that I was ready to direct all of my help and support to others through some sort of organization was just the kick in the ass I needed. Well, that and HR at Yahoo! was beginning to wonder when I was coming back to work.
I could have stayed out longer with a physician’s note declaring me mentally unfit to be in an office environment; the doctor I visited said she would prescribe me antidepressants, and whether or not I chose to take them, a diagnosis would be on my record. Diagnosis? What was there to diagnose besides “dead wife”? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with any sort of help, but I didn’t think I would benefit from it. Even if I did take Zoloft or Paxil or anything else, I was sure that I would still feel the grief just as keenly when I eventually went off the medication. I intended to go into therapy with Madeline when the time was right for her, but for me, right now, the best way to handle my situation was head-on. I needed to feel it.
So I admitted that I wasn’t really mentally unfit for an office environment. And frankly, I felt curious about what life as a functioning member of society would be like. After seven months with my daughter as a permanent sidekick, spending her days sitting in her pink bouncy chair near my desk while I wrote and listened to music at home, or strapped to my chest as we explored the city, I was ready to welcome responsibilities beyond feeding her and putting her down for naps. It was time for my return to the world I never expected to leave, time to make good on my promise to provide Madeline with the kind of life that Liz and I wanted her to have.
But before I left the bubble that had become mine and Madeline’s world, I realized I could no longer put off the list of to-dos that had been building up. I would have to do them; I would have to be the responsible parent. Liz’s death hadn’t just completely changed my life—it had changed my perspective on how tenuous my grasp on life was. Before, I might have driven around without a seat belt or put myself in the middle of a riot to get the perfect photo (Bangalore, 2006). But now I hesitated to even rush out of the shower, fearful that I might slip and crack my skull open, my brain spilling out onto the wet tiles. I spent a lot of time considering all the ways that I could die and leave Maddy completely parentless: a heart attack brought on by years of unhealth
y eating; getting crushed by an avalanche of records; tripping into and drowning in the pond in our backyard.
While Liz had a certain amount of life insurance provided to her as part of her employment at Disney, we hadn’t taken out an additional policy—early death hadn’t really been an option for us. We assumed it would come at the end, only after we had finished with the important business of raising our daughter together, of growing old together. And though we had decided that A.J. and Sonja would be Madeline’s guardians if the shit really hit the fan, they’d need some sort of financial recourse as well. No matter how much you love a baby, it cannot grow up on hugs and encouragement alone.
So here we were. Tom put me in touch with a friend of his in Minneapolis who sold life insurance, and the guy sent somebody over to the house to collect samples from me—in my backyard….
My backyard was lovely. It really was. Big and lush with a giant eucalyptus tree in the far corner, and a koi pond full of fat, orange goldfish that did nothing but swim in circles all day. It was a big part of why Liz and I wanted this house: so our children could run around in this backyard, and we could host big parties for all of our friends and family. One thing I never imagined happening in our backyard was a woman coming over to take my blood and collect a urine sample. (Okay, that wasn’t technically collected out back, but it was where I handed over the warm jar of piss.) Then the lady and her mobile unit drove away with the bodily fluids that would hopefully prove I was worth more dead than alive. At least if I was going to die, I was going to die responsibly.
My reentry into the real world also meant that I obviously needed to find somewhere for Madeline to spend her days while I spent mine in an office. The idea that people could just leave their kids somewhere all day was crazy to me, but I knew I had to do it. The place I wanted for her was clear in my mind, but more elusive in reality—somewhere incredible. The most gentle, safe, healthy, loving day care on the entire planet.
Two Kisses for Maddy Page 17