Two Kisses for Maddy_ A Memoir of Loss & Love - Matthew Logelin [50]
In addition to such crises, I was also dealing with a host of new feelings that came with being a parent. I felt love, exhaustion, nervousness, and, perhaps least expectedly, disgust. Parenting an infant requires a whole new relationship with bodily fluids. With Maddy around, I had to let go of a lot of my hard-lived obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I’d always sort of had them, to the point that Liz once accused me of being bulimic because I rushed to the restroom after every meal. I had to work hard to convince her that I was simply going to wash my hands because I couldn’t stand to have them smell like food. Since most of my clothes are recycled from the thrift store and I insist on keeping a grimy-looking beard, this may be difficult to believe, but it’s true: I am a clean freak. But kids are not clean. They’re dirty, filthy little creatures, and I had to come to terms with the fact that Maddy was going to get me sticky and sneeze on me and wipe her boogers all over me.
Madeline was in my arms one morning, and for no reason at all she vomited. All over me. My adorable little girl opened up her mouth and released a stream of pureed peas, Exorcist-style, all down the front of my Hold Steady T-shirt. There I was, cradling this child, and my first thought was not to put her down and clean myself up—which it absolutely would have been before she was born. Immediately, I made certain that nothing was obstructing my daughter’s breathing. I was covered in green vomit, and I didn’t even care. I wished that Liz had been there to see the vile mess—she would have laughed her ass off.
Without Liz, I now had to deal with our finances, bills, and the rest of the real-life, grown-up responsibilities that came along with them. One of my biggest and most immediate concerns was how we were going to survive financially. As a part of the survivor benefits extended to me through Disney, Liz’s employer, I met with a financial adviser who walked me through the process of creating a budget. Looking at our expenses, I wondered how the hell Madeline and I were going to make it without Liz’s salary—more than half of our income. Ten months before she died, we bought a house at what turned out to be the peak of the real estate market. I now saw it as my duty to ensure that we didn’t lose the house of our dreams, the one Liz fell in love with the moment she saw it. The one she spent countless hours decorating to make perfect. The one we wanted to start our family in.
“With the money you have, if you live conservatively, you’ll be able to stay here for about three years,” said the adviser.
Three years sounded like a long time to me, but then what? Would I have to get a second job? Would I have to short-sell my house, or, even worse, walk away from my mortgage, take the hit to my credit, and move in with family members? According to the financial adviser, I was eligible to collect some form of Social Security benefits on behalf of Madeline, and as Liz’s surviving spouse I’d get a small onetime payout. I wasn’t exactly eager to deal with any sort of government bureaucracy so soon, but I knew that it would ease some of the financial stress and anxiety I was already feeling, so I made an appointment.
I arrived at the Social Security office in Glendale and took a seat near a couple of old women, both probably in their seventies. I figured that they were there for the same reason I was: their spouses had died, and they were hoping to find some financial assistance in this dismal office. But I couldn’t help think how lucky they were to have had forty or fifty good years with their husbands. It was all conjecture—I really had no idea why these women were there, and frankly, I didn’t give a shit. All I could think was that