A(nother) widow's thoughts on Matt Logelin's book…sorta

Like a lot of his faithful blog readers over the past three years, I spent parts of the last few nights reading Matt Logelin's newly published memoir, Two Kisses for Maddy.

And aside from celebrating that his book made it onto the New York Times best-sellers list and enjoying reading the words that a friend of mine has written about a tragic experience that we both share, I found myself abstracted and staring into space frequently as I read.

Because within its pages I found something I didn't expect:

I found Charley.

Reading how one father adjusted to his brand-new fatherhood of a baby girl reminded me so much of how Charley was with Anna…and it jarred loose memories--wonderful, sweet memories--that I haven't thought about in a long, long time.

I can close my eyes and picture Charley, remember us, standing side by side at our newborn daughter's changing table, the pale blue paint of her beadboard nursery walls framing us, laughing together as we struggled to get her flailing, rubbery arms stuffed into the sleeves of her sleeper. This sure seemed a lot easier with the doll at the newborn care class, we giggled at ourselves.

I remember him venting, a day or two later, after a (supposedly) well-meaning family member micromanaged how he handled and held his baby girl, how she'd corrected how he was doing it--when it was never necessary in the first place. What? Like I can't even take care of my own daughter? he fumed. I laughed and placated him a bit, but I'd been irritated too when she'd taken the poopy diaper from my hand and "shown" me how to fold it up tighter, better. Who the hell cares how we fold up a used diaper?, I'd wanted to say to her.

I remember how he looked as he stood next to Anna's bassinet for the first time in our hospital room, only moments after she'd been taken from my womb. He followed the nurse and our child, stood at the head of the wheeled cart, to the left of the nurse, as she checked our daughter and performed her first Apgar tests. I remember watching him, and marveling, as he started to sob as he got his first good, long looks at his beautiful baby girl--the first time our child was finally real to him.

I remember how he couldn't look at me as he said his wedding vows nine months prior, how he'd repeat the pastor's words back to me--words that I'd written and Charley'd approved--promising to love me as long as we both lived…but how his gaze kept flicking over and past my left shoulder. I can't look at you, he said under his breath to me. He didn't need to say why, because I knew. He couldn't look at me and make those promises, or else he'd completely lose it and start crying in front of all of our family and friends, in front of me. He couldn't look at me and say those words without crying, because he loved me so much.

I remember him coming to me in the early hours of a Saturday morning in mid-January a year later, as snow and ice rimmed our bedroom windows. He wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in my abdomen. Mia's going to die, he broke out without preamble, as sobs started to wrack his body.

I remember how he couldn't stay in the room, two hours later, as the vet helped his six-year-old cat die, how he went to the lobby to wait while I stayed in the room with her as the drugs stopped her heart, stopped her suffering from massive, early kidney failure. I remember how I couldn't let her die alone, how I stroked the perfect white fur on her head as the vet administered the fatal injection, while Charley couldn't bear to watch.

I remember sitting at our brand-new dining room table two nights before he died--his (our) proud, happy purchase of affordable, attractive furniture that perfectly complemented our 1918 Craftsman home, and our first piece of furniture bought together. It had been delivered just that afternoon. I remember him sitting at the table, at the end closest to the beautiful built-in buffet in our dining room, as he exclaimed about his excitement over the table. Why didn't we do this sooner? he laughed. (Because you were being cheap and didn't want to, I answered back inside my own mind, despite that I've been trying to talk you into it for the past two years.) I remember us sitting there as we chattered away like magpies for an hour or two, as I regaled him with the stories from our ten-year high school reunion that weekend--a reunion he'd refused to attend, despite that we both graduated from the same school--and as he told me about his ill-fated, solo mountain biking ride the day before in the foothills of Mt. St. Helens. I remember how excited we were to be back together after a short weekend apart, how much we loved each other's company, how we could talk to each other for hours and hours.

I remember…I remember….

But reading how another man my age lost his wife--who, like us, was his high school and college sweetheart--and mourned her death and raised their infant alone, how he strove to keep his child's mother and her memory in her life, also gave me back another, different piece of my past that had been missing to me for many years:

Remembering how much Charley loved me.

As the grief got worse for me over the years, as the strong, competent, productive woman I used to be crumbled under months and years of grief, isolation, and depression, I fell victim to something else: being aware of only my shortcomings in grief, in life. That my house was a disaster, a cluttered, dirty mess; that my lawn is regularly six to eight inches tall and weeks past needing to be mown; that I've gained a good fifty to sixty pounds since Charley last saw me; that I don't eat very healthily or do anything active; that I fail to leave my house or get dressed or even shower for too many days out of any given week: these are the demons that torment(ed) me after years of grief. Because I knew, without a doubt, that Charley would hate those things about this "new" me…because they were things that drove him crazy when he was alive.

And as the old me--the one that Charley knew, and loved, and was proud of--eroded away as I dragged blindly through my third, my fourth year of widowhood, I found I couldn't remember what Charley did love about me, why he loved me. I knew that he did love me--and love me deeply--when he was alive, but it bothered me greatly that I couldn't remember one single, specific, tangible reason why he loved me. Yeah, sure, I was smart, competent, and not given over to the usual girly drama, bullshit, and histrionics…but so are a lot of other women. Why me?

I found it really upsetting that I couldn't remember what, or why. It made me feel worse when I thought many times that he probably wouldn't really like the new post-widowed me all that much, that he might find her awfully loud and annoying sometimes. Even just a little over a month ago, at the beginning of March, I found myself starting to ask myself the same old question again: but WHY did he love me?

And as I read the 260-odd pages that Matt wrote about his wife, imperfections and perfections alike, I found answers, two-fold. Reminders that Charley loved me no matter what, regardless of all the things that drove him crazy back then; that so much of what he loved about me came from the tiny, inconsequential things that I did, said, believed, felt, over our twelve-year history…and from the big things too. That I don't know or can't remember what they specifically were became (mostly) irrelevant as I read Matt's words. Charley loved me for all the 5,001 things he'd tell people about me, if I'd been the one who'd died instead.

And separately, Matt's story helped remind me that Charley would have been equally as devastated as I had been, if I had I been the one who'd died in July of 2005…or at any other time. It wasn't a new revelation for me--I'd felt it several years earlier, when I was reading Matt's blog back in the first year after Liz died--but it was really striking, being reminded of it again this week.

I'm sure I was extra-ripe for new (or comfortingly old) thoughts about Charley while reading Matt's book, given the timing right now. I spent Saturday afternoon photographing the funeral of my college friend's now-late husband, as well as reconnecting with several old casual acquaintances/friends from college, whom I haven't seen in twelve or more years. They were both women whom I always liked tremendously but never really knew very well, and as we reconnected at the funeral of another man who died far too young, my loss was also a part of our conversations. And so for the last almost-two weeks, Charley's death has been at the forefront of much of my thoughts…and many of my conversations.

To top it off last night (the same night as Greg's funeral), I had vivid, very bizarre dreams of Charley. He was alive, and Greg had just died…and while I don't remember the content of the dreams, my lasting impression of them almost twenty-four hours later was simply how present he was. I couldn't say now if it was accurately him or merely a warped, skewed shadow that my widowed subconscious created…but having a dream of him on the same night after having to go through the funeral of another young man my age, after talking about my loss more than I usually do, probably made me especially prone to thoughts of Charley while reading Matt's story.

Thankfully, they were all sweet, unexpected, and very welcome thoughts….

And last night, as I walked down the hall as I left the funeral--as I was one of the last five people leaving there--I thought something else…something rather unusual for me: that Charley would have been proud of me.

I've said before on here how "proud of me" aren't exactly words I can ascribe to Charley's continuing memory of me. But yesterday--after I photographed the funeral for my friend; after I politely and respectfully held my ground with the pastor when he wasn't keen on the idea of me shooting the service itself; when he later congratulated me on what a good, tasteful job I had done; when I talked with him and the few college friends and my friend's mom about my loss in honest, composed, succinct words; when I made it through the afternoon without being overwhelmed by any of my own grief--I could. Yesterday, he'd have been proud of me.

And for all of the five years, nine months, and eleven days before that too, I bet….