Two Kisses for Maddy_ A Memoir of Loss & Love - Matthew Logelin [59]
With each experience Madeline and I had together, my confidence level increased. After a while, I kind of felt like I could handle any parenting challenge thrown my way—what a big difference a few months had made. Though I initially had been preoccupied with the possibility of ruining or breaking my daughter, through everything she was thriving. Each successive trip to the doctor brought more words of encouragement, and with that encouragement came more confidence, too.
Despite being born seven weeks early, Madeline’s measurements were in the average range on the growth charts at her three-month appointment, though the NICU doctors had warned me that might not happen until she was two years old. Madeline’s pediatrician, Dr. Jennifer Hartstein, would ask me all sorts of questions to get a clear understanding of Madeline’s physical and mental development, and when the appointment was finished, she would offer a simple but effective “Matt, you’re doing a great job.” Considering how out of control my life seemed after Liz’s death, it was incredible for me to know that I was succeeding at the most important job in the world—a job I didn’t know I had been so well prepared for—or prepared for at all.
These day-to-day experiences, early successes with Madeline, and praise from real experts led to an interesting transition in my blog. There were people who’d been reading my blog since Madeline’s birth, many of whom had found it because they were pregnant. By now, some of their babies had been born, and with infants of their own at home, they didn’t have a clue what they were doing. So they turned to me, a guy they knew had been through it.
Everyone assumes—and society encourages—that all women are experts at being mothers. What I found, however, was that women are just as fucking clueless as men are; they’re just more willing to ask for and accept help. Here was a man—me—who just months earlier had no goddamned clue what he was doing, and now I was giving advice to many of the same women who had given it to me.
Not that what I was offering was really “advice.” I would never tell anyone how they should do things. All I could offer was my own perspective: “Here is how I did it. It may not work for you, but this was my experience.” For the first time since I had begun talking to other moms and dads, I felt that I could hold my own in any parenting conversation that arose. In fact, I not only felt as if I was equal to the rest of them, but I also felt a little bit like being a single father somehow gave me a leg up. I was, after all, doing at least twice as much work as I would have been if Liz were alive, and I was doing it as a stay-at-home dad. If that didn’t make me an expert, I don’t know what would.
Many questions also came my way regarding the death of a spouse. After all, fathering a newborn was only half my story. People wrote to find out how they could help in the immediate aftermath of a death in the family. Asking the bereaved what they need may be kind and well-intentioned, but ultimately it didn’t help me at all. When Liz died, all I knew was that I wanted my wife back, and that that was not possible. I didn’t know that I needed to have the floor swept. I couldn’t recognize that there was no food in the refrigerator. I had no idea that my mail was piling up and I was probably not paying my electricity bill. My most common advice for these people was anti-advice—what not to do. “Don’t touch anything in the house. Don’t throw anything away because who knows what she may be attached to. Don’t wash the sheets, because maybe she wants to be able to smell her husband’s cologne awhile longer.” I told people