Review: Two Kisses for Maddy by Matt Logelin

I read Two Kisses for Maddy over Thanksgiving.

In the spirit of the holiday, I want to say that I am extremely grateful I did not read this book while I was pregnant.

Because Two Kisses for Maddy is Matt Logelin's memoir detailing the loss of his wife, Liz, 27 hours after she gave birth to their daughter, Madeline. And I was the kind of pregnant person who, after reading an article about miscarriages caused by smaller-than-average gestational sacs, broke out all of her ultrasound pictures and a ruler and TOTALLY FREAKED OUT. One of the only things that got me through those seven months, those thirteen weeks of bed rest, was thinking, over and over, "Women don't die in childbirth in the twenty-first century." And clinging to that. Reading this book while pregnant would have been my one-way ticket to Panicville.

James is not grateful that I read this book, either, mostly because the weeping it induced caused me to use up all of the toilet paper in the house. And also because it lead to a lot of conversations like this:

ME: In this book, Matt Logelin made his wife who died an awesome funeral playlist that encapsulated how he felt about her.

JAMES (sighs): If you died, I would make a playlist that encapsulated how I felt about you.

ME: What songs would you pick?

JAMES: ...

ME (slightly hysterical): You can't think of ONE SONG? Not one? How are you, in the midst of your crushing grief, going to make me a beautiful playlist full of meaningful songs if you can't even think of one song right now, when you are not grieved?

JAMES: Jesus! OK. I'd pick something by X. Adult Books, maybe.

ME (slightly more hysterical): "Do plenty people go for tomato?" That's how you feel about me, mother of your only child? In this scenario, remember, I am dead and CAN'T FORGIVE YOU.

JAMES (annoyed): You know what! I don't want to talk about your funeral playlist anymore. And I don't want to talk about Matt Logelin's book again.

Which is a valid enough request. It's not pleasant to think of your spouse dying. It's not pleasant to think of yourself dying. But at some point, all of us are going to, and most of us are going to leave someone behind when we go. It's something you don't want to dwell on. Except--in this case, I couldn't stop reading about it. There is something mesmerizing about watching a person who has lost so much pick up the pieces. And there is something seductive and voyeuristic about applying this scenario to the context of your own life. What will we leave behind when we go? In Liz Logelin's case, she leaves Maddy, of course, a thousand memories and dozens of friends, but also a large gap in income that her husband struggles to fill. When the donations start pouring in, Logelin realizes that he has more than he needs, and so he creates the Liz Logelin Foundation to help young widows and widowers make ends meet after the death of a spouse.

This was my favorite part of the book by far: the ways, big and small, in which Matt tries to honor Liz's memory, to make the impact of her life something that is felt in the world, in himself, and in their daughter. His attempts are always touching--as he sorts through handwritten notes, looking for an example of his wife's handwriting to get tattooed on his wrists--and sometimes humorous--as he sets out to buy the expensive designer dress for Maddy that his wife might have chosen, if she'd been able:

So there I was, a bearded man who looked like he should have been on line to buy tickets for the National, standing in a children's store, shopping for dresses with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed cherub.

"This is beautiful," I told the woman behind the counter.

"It's Chloe," she said.

I almost said, "I'm Matt and this is Madeline," but then I realized she was gesturing at the label...

In my head, the sarcasm was rampant. Who gives a fuck if this is a Chloe dress? Who the fuck is Chloe, anyway? I'm wearing a Sears shirt for which I paid six dollars eight years ago at a thrift store in Chicago.

But I knew that Liz would have cared. And to be honest, now I cared...I briefly considered fleeing, but then I caught the bitchy look on the salesgirl's face as I tried to comprehend a baby dress that cost more than my entire wardrobe, and its lace trim caught my eye. I looked at Maddy sleeping in her stroller and then I bought the dress.

For two hundred fucking dollars.
Also really interesting to me was reading about the way that Logelin used his blog to build an online community, seeking advice from other bloggers in the same situation as his. A few years ago, there a mom-blogger caught a lot of flack for Twittering about her son's drowning as the paramedics were working to revive him. Heather Spohr and other bloggers have defended her, and have talked themselves about how online support networks were so valuable to them in their times of need. Logelin shows how the support of faceless strangers helped to fill the gap left behind by his take-charge wife:

To write up a quick post and receive a bunch of responses with advice and reassurance really validated the work I was doing as a father...I used the blog to ask questions, often beginning, "What do I do...?" I always filed every answer away, in case I needed to refer back to something later.

All the while, as Matt works and learns and buys dresses and blogs, Liz is there. Not lurking at the corners of things, but there, so there that though at first I thought about describing this book as the story of a man who builds a family without his wife, instead I think that I am going to say it's the story of a family that doesn't look like yours or mine, a family where one of the members is conspicuously absent in a physical form but is no less absent in her child's life because of that.

The book ends after Maddy's first birthday, and that's the only thing that would have made it better for me, if it had gone on a bit longer. It's hard enough to imagine doing all the diapering, feeding, bathing of a baby without the support of a coparent. I would have liked to know more about how Logelin is handling the more ephemeral parenting jobs on his own. I suppose I could always keep up with his blog, but I have to admit that I much preferred the clear, concise prose of the book to the verse-style format of his online offerings, which often loses me. I hope in a few years that Logelin will write again and give us a kind of update on how he's doing with the toddler things, with the big questions, now that Maddy is starting to ask them.


I feel a little hinky saying that reading this book has made me feel so lucky. I hate it when people are all, "Wow, the story of how you lost your house really makes me appreciate my shitty condo!" But in all honesty, I've been thinking of Liz Logelin pretty constantly since I finished her husband's book. Every time Lulu wakes up crying in the night, every time I want a break, I think of Liz, and what she wasn't able to do for her girl, and I do for mine with a more loving heart. When I hit the Black Friday sales this weekend, I thought of Liz, and I luxuriated in a sequined blouse I might not have otherwise bought for myself. The realization that a woman I never met was behind these little revelations in my life really made me feel how what she must have meant to those who loved her, what a giant, gaping hole her loss must have made in their lives.

It hurt to read this book. But I'm glad I read it.

And I'm grateful to Logelin for sharing his--Liz's, Maddy's--story with us.