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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.

My responsibility now was for another human life, and fucking up was not an option. Because Maddy was still so tiny, the NICU doctor had placed her on a strict feeding schedule. Every three hours she got a bottle of formula and a diaper change, day and night. I thought about all the times Liz would yell at me for forgetting to stop and eat while she was out of town, and how it wouldn’t go too well for Madeline if I forgot to feed her.

Sensing my fear, or perhaps trying to assuage their own, Tom and Candee, now back in Minnesota, called to tell me that they had worked with a few of Liz’s friends to track down some assistance for me. The memorial fund that Sonja and Josh set up had brought in well over sixty thousand dollars since Liz’s funeral, and Tom insisted that the best use of the money was to pay for some help.

“You have enough money for round-the-clock aid for at least a month, and that’s exactly what this money is for.”

He was right, but all I could think about was the future—how we were going to continue to live in our house, and how we were going to make it without Liz’s income. But I looked at the memorial fund as an emergency reserve, to be used only in the direst of circumstances. I didn’t want to dip into it to pay someone to do a job that I saw as a labor of love. I got on the phone with Tom.

“Matt, good news. We found a postpartum doula who’s willing to donate one night of her services for free,” Tom said. “She heard about your story and wants to help.”

I had no idea what the hell a doula even was, but I remembered Liz telling me that some of her friends had them before and after their pregnancies.

“Great,” I said, as I looked up the definition of the word.

I was hopeful that a doula was some sort of baby sorcerer, ready to impart upon me secret child-rearing knowledge that had been passed down through generations of doulas before.

“Now, if we could find another 365 like her, you and Maddy will be just fine.”

“Maybe. Hey, Tom?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you know that the etymology of the word doula is from the Greek doule, meaning