Two Kisses for Maddy_ A Memoir of Loss & Love - Matthew Logelin [69]
Chapter 18
i can’t remember what
we did for our
anniversary last year.
the only other person
who would know
is no longer here
to jog my memory.
so how the fuck
do i figure this out?
The middle of August came, and with it my trip to Canada with Liz’s family. Our actual anniversary fell a few days in. That morning, we took Madeline to Sulphur Mountain, where she experienced her first gondola ride. The apprehensive look on her face made me think that she had inherited my fear of heights and thus enjoyed the experience about as much as I did (not at all). Before Liz’s death, I never would have voluntarily gotten into a box suspended high above the ground by a couple of wires, but when I looked up at the mountain that day, I heard Liz’s voice saying, Don’t be such a pussy. Roughly, that translated to: I’m not around anymore; you have to do the things with Madeline that I would have done.
So I scaled the mountain with my baby, and I actually felt pretty proud when we made it to the top—until I realized how frigid it was at those heights. Thanks to me, Madeline was completely underdressed: I had a hat to cover her ears and socks to cover her feet, but I hadn’t brought along any mittens—we didn’t even own any. Just as I started to worry that my daughter’s tiny fingers would get too cold and that the well-prepared parents nearby would judge us, I found a pair of socks in the diaper bag and placed them on her hands. Maddy started waving around happily, and I instantly felt better. It might not have been a pretty solution, but at least my kid was warm. And I had conquered one of my biggest fears thanks to her and to the memory of her mother’s urging, too.
Later that night I found myself at a dinner table in Banff, surrounded by Tom, Candee, and Deb, unable to say a word. I just sat there, Madeline in my arms, thinking about how Liz and I would have celebrated this occasion if she were still alive, and trying not to think about our wedding. It was at that moment that I realized I had no idea what the fuck we had done for our second anniversary. Our last anniversary together. I searched the deepest part of my brain, trying to find some hint of a memory that could help me recall what it was we had done the year before. Were we at the beach? Did we go out to dinner? Had we been on a trip? I couldn’t remember anything.
I stayed focused on keeping Madeline from pulling everything off of the table, and I didn’t manage more than a few bites of my steak. I was silent, staring down at the tablecloth while conversation flowed steadily around me. We toasted Deb for her law school accomplishments, but no one had mentioned Liz at all, or the fact that it was our anniversary. In our few days together in Banff, I was the only one who had so much as uttered Liz’s name, and each time the word floated off unacknowledged.
One way of dealing with death is to avoid discussing it altogether—it’s not uncommon. But seeing this reaction from Liz’s family surprised me, and it made me feel even more lonely and isolated. Worse was that I’d known these people for almost half my life—Tom and Candee were as much my parents as my own mom and dad. They didn’t have to change my diapers or pay for my education, but they had been there through so many of my challenges and successes. I wasn’t angry or even mildly upset about their silence; it just showed again how different the grieving process is for everyone, and I could recognize that much. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t make me sad. One of my great comforts since Liz’s death had been talking about her—I was afraid that if her name went unmentioned or the stories went untold, our memories of her would forever disappear, and so would she. And I felt like this possibility was already manifesting itself