normalcy

week three of

my trip around

the country

talking about

that thing I worked

on for madeline

it's been a week

 since i've seen

my baby.

(well a week since i've hugged my baby. I saw some photos that her grandma broccoli sent my way of maddy covered (and i mean covered) in temporary tattos, and some more that the other grandparents have sent my way.)

it has been

awful to be

away from her,

and i have been feeling

terribly guilty

but then i reminded

myself that if

things has been

different, they

probably would

have been the same.

(but yeah different).

i would still

be at my old job,

still traveling

to and from india

every few months,

still missing some

important moments,

still missing my baby.

all of it

to give her the

kind of future

she deserves.

so even though i

miss her more than

i can adequately describe,

it makes me

long for tomorrow.

(something i never expected).

and i hate to say it

bit its nice to know

that i can

(finally?)

find some

normalcy in our situation

(something i never expected).

Written by Matt, posted by Michele due to some technical difficulties....

found

a few days

ago she found them.

they’d been sitting

in plain view

since before her

mom died.

well, not exactly

in plain view…

they were covered by

a couple of books,

but i could see

them from where i

sat every day,

working on our taj.

it helped

that i knew they

were there,

otherwise i probably

would have looked

past them as well.

but at two years

three months and

six days,

she found them.

i didn’t hesitate

when she said,

“oh! daddy!” in

that voice she

only uses when

she’s excited about something

(and she uses it a lot).

i lifted the books,

and pulled

out the box.

with a little help,

they were soon

liberated from the

plastic and held

tightly in her hands.

no longer did

they look like

choking hazards.

now,

they were gifts her

mom had intended

for her future daughter.

the daughter she

dreamed of

is here,

but she is not.

written words

today, someone asked

me what i do.

when i told her

she asked,

“how do you come up with them?”

“i don’t know,” i said.

“i can’t make them stop.”

and it reminded me that

i used to wonder,

are there enough of them?

they seemed so hard to

come by before that

moment, but now,

they’re as plentiful as

the rays of light

blanketing los angeles

in july.

these things,

they’re that rope

i found hanging from

the sky that day,

the one i held,

floating away

as the rest of

the world disappeared.

and as tightly as

i’ve clung to them,

they’re the reason i

can let go

of some things.

circles

not long after

the darkness fell

upon us,

i came up with

an arbitrary goal…

wear them one day

longer than

her.

but this wasn’t the

first time i let

some unspoken goal

determine my behavior.

no,

giving myself

a personal challenge that

eventually becomes

a near obsessive compulsive disorder,

this is a problem

i’ve always had.

like that time

as a kid when

i decided that everything

had to be done

an even number of times.

or that time

i wondered how

long i could go without

drinking soda,

(six years, five months and twenty five days).

but there’s nothing magical

about any of this.

about 947 days,

so 743 it was.

she would have been

surprised that i’d made

it this long

with them.

not gone

there, where they
used to be,
is a thin line,
dug deep into my
skin, one that only
i can see,
a reminder that
they’re still there
even if
they’re not where
they used to be.
that line will not
be there forever,
but the mark
they left on me
will remain until
i breathe no longer.

working and happy

it is late

and i’m still awake,

a fit of creativity

has settled upon

my brain, and has

translated into

eight fingers and two

thumbs, working to pound

out the

words i’ve struggled

to find.

tonight i spoke to

one of my best

friends in the world,

and she

cried for us.

happy tears,

knowing,

evident in the smile

in my photos,

the words that i

write and the sound

of my voice,

that i am

the happiest i’ve

been in a very long time.

and she knows

you’re to blame,

and for that she cried.

so sleep…

because i will

be awake, writing

about the past,

ready for the future.

and then there's this

happiness has pervaded

my life,

before, during and after

my time with

liz.


and since she died,

it’s been my friends

and family and stranger friends

and music and books and

travel and writing and

memories and photography

and baseball and cheeseburgers

and beer and this blog

and countless other things

that have all been

huge sources

of happiness for me.

and then there’s madeline.

what can i say about

her now that

i don’t think every second,

that i don’t write down

whenever i can,

that i don’t capture

on virtual film

every day?

well, she’s been

my biggest source of

happiness since

liz

died, my reason for

getting out of bed

in the morning,

the reason

i can pull myself

together after

finding a long lost

photo of

liz

in a box in our garage,

the reason i haven’t

fled the country

with just my ipod and wallet.

madeline is my everything.

without her, i would be nowhere,

but with her

i am here.

and now,

there’s another source of

happiness in my life.

her name is brooke.

and we’re dating.

it’s weird how

things like this

can sneak up

on you,

but i’m happy it did.

we met briefly

last september,

a five minute conversation

that found me teasing her

(that should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me).

we hung

out a couple of

times at the end of november.

and in december,

when maddy and i

were in mn for

the holidays,

we spent even more time together.

and now,

she’s been out to

los angeles to visit

us twice since

we returned here at the

end of january.

she makes me smile,

and maddy

really loves her.

how do i know?

because madeline hates

most women, yet

she lets brooke do

her hair without

putting up a fight.

but this…

this relationship,

it’s something i’ve

been reluctant to talk about.

why?

because it’s hard

enough to discuss this

with my friends

and family, face-to-face,

let alone

with strangers

on my blog.

plus, i’m pretty

sure this is gonna

change the way

that some people view me.

and widows and widowers,

the people that

i’ve committed to helping,

both through my words

and through the foundation

i started in

liz’s

name, may think

i no longer “get” them.

i assure you,

i do.

finding another source

of happiness does

not mean that i

have moved

past the pain,

’cause i still feel

that pain on a daily basis.

and this doesn’t mean

that i have replaced

liz.

the way i look at

things is that when

liz

died, i died.

but i was reincarnated

a moment later,

and i’m

lucky enough

to have the memories

of my previous

life still with me.

these memories,

both good

and bad,

come to play in my

everyday life,

and it’s these memories

that will keep

liz

alive for madeline.

she will know

her mother through

my memories of her,

through the photographs

i’ve taken,

through the family and

friends that i

hold dear,

and it’s these people who will

remain in her life,

and my life forever.

and i see this

whole thing

as an evolutionary process,

a process that has

me moving through,

not moving on,

because moving on

is impossible.

but happiness…

it’s been here the

whole time,

even in my darkest,

most fucked-up

moments, yes, there

has been happiness.

and with brooke

now in our lives,

there’s even more happiness.

and i don’t see

how that

could be anything

but positive.

here

i’ve been here,

in this place.

but when?

was it twenty five years ago?

maybe eight?

yesterday?

no.

it was

thirteen years ago.

and it was

almost four years ago.

i was here.

she was here

we.

we were here.

but it was different.

thirteen years ago

it was an

awkward meal with

people who didn’t

know me.

but she made

it comfortable,

even fun.

…

some of them

were here.

i was here.

she was here.

we.

we were here.

and that day four

years ago,

we stood up

there.

it was that day,

that day i

put the one

now on my

left hand

on hers.

and the one

now on my right

was on my left.

it was to

be like that forever.

that was the plan.

i can smell

the flowers.

i can feel the excitement

of that moment.

i can see the dress.

and the woman

inside of it.

but four years

later, i am here

some of them

are here,

but she,

she

is not here.

…

a voice

on my stomach,

the pillow over my head,

right ear pressed to

the mattress.

i can hear her voice

resonating through the

springs below,

the vibration reducing the

words to nothing more

than a mumble.

the voice,

unmistakable,

but she’s not in

the room.

where's my towel?

for the second time

in less than a

week there was

no towel waiting

for me when

i got out of

the shower.



why?

because i left the

damn thing hanging

on the door knob

in my bedroom.

first instinct,

still,

13+ months after

she

died was to yell,

“hey liz! can you please bring me a towel?”

fuck.

when does that

go away?

the fact that

i left my towels

all over the house

really used

to piss

liz

off, and i can

still here yelling

from the other room,

“no. sorry! you’ll have to air-dry! this is what happens when you don’t return your towel to the bathroom after your shower.”

she always ended

up bringing me

a towel, but

she always made

me suffer before

doing so.

…

instead of

getting a towel

delivered to me

by my wife,

i shook

myself like a

wet dog,

and made my

way to the linen

closet where i

found a towel.

new refridgerator

i bought a new

refrigerator a couple

of weeks ago

to replace the one

that had been

fixed twice and

was still leaking water

all over my floor.

a few days before

it was delivered

i looked at the

old one and

realized i needed to

clean it.

both the inside and the outside

needed cleaning

so i removed the

photos, wedding invitations,

recipes, and hand-written

lists of things

liz

wanted me to do

around the house

or pick up from

the grocery store.

and then…

underneath a magnet,

behind a torn piece

of paper with

an e-mail address and

phone number from

the past, there

was the card,

included with some flowers,

that i had

asked the

florist to send to

her

back in september 2007.

i was in india

at the time,

on another business trip,

during what would

be her 30th and

final birthday.

…

the new fridge

has been delivered

and the old one

has been removed.

many of the things

on the inside have

been thrown away.

but the stuff

on the outside…

the photos, wedding invitations,

recipes, and hand-written

lists of things for me

to do, are

on the new one.

and so is that

card.

struggling

struggling.
not sure why.
somehow i got to thinking
about the notes that liz
used to write
to me in the
blank cards
she used to buy.

i think i have
them all.
or at the very
least, most of them.
can’t look at them yet.
can barely stand
to think about them.
i will never
see another.
…
she would come across
them, months, years later
(usually while cleaning my desk)
and would say,
“why do you keep this shit?”
“i don’t know.”
is all i could
ever come up with.

but even before
she was gone, this ephemera
from these important moments
was something that
i knew i had to keep.
i just couldn’t
articulate why.
…
recently i
came across a couple
of notes i had
written to her
before heading off
on business trips.
they weren’t in
fancy letter-pressed
cards or on that
expensive-ass stationary
that only a woman
would buy.
no.
they were scrawled out
on 8.5×11 paper,
or on sheets of
lined notebook paper
thoughtlessly torn from one of
those composition books
i’d stolen from work,
the ones with
the black and white covers,
or on any scrap
of paper i could
find as i ran out
the door to
catch my cab.

as i find these
things i think,
“why did she keep this shit?”
i wish i could ask her.

hawaiian wedding part two

when it was time

to get ready for

the wedding.

i’m of course

going tie-less

because i still

don’t know how

to tie one and

my wife is

no longer here

to curse and assist me.

we took our

seat in the

sun and as the bride

started walking

down the aisle,

maddy started to squirm

and make some noise.

shit.

we retreated and

i kept one

eye on maddy

and the other on

the wedding.

i knew that

she

would have been

up there with

the others,

and i would have

been here doing

what i am doing

and i kept it together

until i looked

down and noticed

liz’s

name listed on

the wedding program.

…

after the wedding

maddy took her

mom’s

place in the photo




(as i look at the photo and think about the sentence i just wrote, i figured that someone reading this may take the sentence literary and think that kevin would have been holding liz, but the visual made me laugh out loud so i’m leaving everything as-is).

hawaiian wedding part one

on april 16th,

i flew to the

island of oahu

with madeline.

we were there to

celebrate the wedding of

one of

liz’s

best friends in

the whole wide world,

maleeda.

all of her best

friends from college

were there.

i was honored to

be invited,

but i anticipated it

being a tough trip.


we arrived and i

was instantly transported

back in time.

i had been

here before.

we

had been here before.

shit.

now…

i knew

that i had taken

five trips to

hawaii with

liz,

but i can never

remember which

island is which,

and i was unsure

that i had ever

been to this one,

that is,

until i hit

that baggage claim area.

it was a few

years ago.

liz

was working on oahu,

and instead of

flying home to

see me for my birthday,

she flew me to

her.

maddy and i

jumped in a cab

and the memories

continued to kick

me in the stomach.

i remembered the highway,

i remembered the street

lined with high-end shops.

i remembered the

hotels along the beach.

and as we pulled

into the driveway

of the hotel i had

chosen online,

i looked across the

street and

saw the hotel

we

stayed in all

of those years ago.

fuck.

maddy and i went up

to our room.

a corner room,

looking out at that

other hotel

from my past.

i remember us standing

on the balcony

of that hotel,

i even have

two photos

of the moment,

but i won’t share them.

liz’s

eyes were closed

in both of them

(this was in my pre-digital slr camera days so my timing often sucked)

and i can just

hear her telling

me to delete the photos.

more birthday

two saturdays ago,

a whole bunch

of people

came together to

celebrate madeline’s

first birthday.




her actual birthday was

on march 24,

but this was the

first time we could

get (almost) everyone together

many of our

family members flew in

(two even drove from the mn)

and a lot

of madeline’s friends

showed up.

it was an

amazing day

for the humans.

in that backyard

that sold

liz

on the house,

we celebrated all

that is good

in our lives

even though we

were missing

the one person

who would have

had the biggest smile.

a year

a year?

yes.

a year.




what a difference

a year doesn’t make.

or does it?

march 24 and march 25.

one year later.

but a year,

a year

is nothing.

it’s a second.

no.

it’s a minute.

or maybe it’s an hour.

doesn’t matter.

we continue doing what

we need to do.

every second

of every day.

but march 26?

it’s the same as

january 29 or august 5

of whatever.

right now we

are right where

we need to be,

in the one place that

will help us

to do those things

that we must do.

what am i talking about?

everything.