Signs of Life

Thank you Sean Perrone and Aaron Kaplan for being the magical link from lifelong dream to real life. Howie Sanders, thank you so much for reading this and handing it to the right person.

Christy Fletcher, thank you for taking me on and sticking with me, despite the fact that I had zero knowledge in all things publishing.

Christine Pride, my amazing editor, the best teammate in the world, thank you for helping me create the best book possible and for always appreciating the crazy thoughts in my head.

Two Roads Books, our U.K. publisher, thank you so much for adopting
Signs of Life
.

A special thank-you to my grandmother Fran “Narfy” Stevenson for her last-minute copyedits. Narf, you’re a real pro.

Nancy and Chip, thanks for joining the Family—no questions asked.

There are many, many other people in this world who were there for me after the death of my husband, Josh Taylor. Shortly after June 17, 2007, I fully believed my life was over. I would like
to say thank you, a million times over, to those who worked ceaselessly to convince me that it wasn’t. Turns out you were right.

More specifically, I would like to thank the following people for helping me put my life back together. This book happened only because of the love and support from the people around me.

Thank you students of Berkley High School. Like my own son, you drive me crazy and give me a reason to live. I love you all. Please read the books we give you.

Thank you to the staff of Berkley High School for turning a workplace into a community and for providing me with the secret ingredient of parenthood sanity: intellectual, adult conversation.

Thank you to my friends for rescuing me from the mess of bathrobe and sweatpants.

Thank you Chris Mathews for being Chris Mathews. If it weren’t for you, this book and my life would be horribly boring.

Thank you Ads, Ells, Moo, Dubs, and Hales for being my life coaches in how to be a mentally, physically, and emotionally strong person. I just watch what you guys do and then try to imitate it. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that. Never in a million years would I have the guts to write this if it hadn’t been for the other Sztykiel children (plus two) cheering me on.

Thank you Deedee, Ashley, and Chris. I love you. I am so happy I married you. Please don’t hate me.

Krystyna and George Sztykiel, better known as Grammy and Grampy, thank you for teaching us that there is one code to live by in life: take care of your family.

Finally, my parents, Lynn and Vito. Ever since we were little you told us we were strong enough, talented enough, and smart enough to do whatever we wanted and make every ambition come true. Thank you for always believing in your children. It is your best quality. Your love and support is the foundation of everything in my life. Because of you, I have never felt alone.

While this is a true story, the names of all of my students and the individuals who participated in the single mothers’ group and the grief group have been changed to protect their identities.

This memoir is a compilation of journal entries that I wrote following my husband’s death. It is not a reflection that was written after time passed, it is what was in my brain at that moment. While this book has been edited in the appropriate respects, the experiences and personal thoughts have remained the same since the days they were originally typed into my computer, which is not to say I am proud of all the things I say and do, but it is to say that it is real to the person I was at that time, and, for better or worse, I am still very much the same neurotic, over-analytical nut-job you are about to meet.

mathews
walks in the door. It is somewhere in the middle of the night. I wake up. “Your phone is off.” He says something about trying to call me, that people have been trying to call me. He says something about Josh. Josh has been in an accident.
No big deal
, I think to myself.
Let’s just go home
. I picture a broken arm. I have a flash of seeing him in a hospital bed annoyed at an injury. Chris Mathews is one of my good friends—he’s Josh’s best friend. Mathews and I are in Florida visiting my sister Moo and her husband, David. Josh, my husband, couldn’t come because of work, so he’s back in Michigan. I just hung up with him right before I lay down. He was out Carveboarding with our friend Nate. We just got to Miami this morning, but I don’t care about leaving early—I had reservations about leaving Josh anyway.

But there is something in Mathews’s voice that isn’t right. In moments, it registers. I know it’s more than a broken arm. Josh hit his head, he tells me. The back of his head. I talk to Nate.
I ask if he was bleeding. He says yes. I picture a cut on his forehead. “Where?” I ask. “His mouth.”

I lie in Moo’s bed. All of the lights are off. Mathews is in the front of the house somewhere. Every now and then my left leg starts to shake uncontrollably. I go to the bathroom. I throw up a little. I go back and start shaking again. I go to the bathroom and have diarrhea. I go back and my leg starts shaking again. I put clothes back into my suitcase. I go to the bathroom again. No puke, no diarrhea. Nothing.

Moo comes in; there are a few frantic phone calls back and forth. No one gets on the phone with me. Mom and Dad talk to Moo. Moo relays words. I know. I know. No one says it, but I know.

we
leave for the airport. I have no idea what time it is. I am on the phone with a doctor. He asks me if Josh’s heart stops, do I want to resuscitate him. I ask questions. I do not cry. He says something about severe brain damage,
severe
. I say no, do not resuscitate him. We hang up.

I call my mom.

“The dogs,” I say. “Can someone go get the dogs?”

“Yes,” she says.

We are on the plane. It is light out. We are sitting on the runway because the plane doesn’t have any electricity or something. Moo is crying. I am not. There is a man standing at the front of the plane talking on a phone with his hand on his hip. He has no idea.

We are in the air. I get up to go to the bathroom again. I walk back to my seat. A man says to me, “You and your sister seem upset.”

“My husband was in an accident. He’s suffered a severe injury to his head.” Just like that. I say it just like that. I am not crying.

“Your husband? The father of your baby?” His eyes drop briefly to my stomach. My hand is over my stomach. I am five months pregnant.

“Yeah.”

“Well, these days, I mean, what doctors can do. You shouldn’t lose hope.”

“Thanks.” I sit back down.

I walk through the terminal. My family is there. They hug me. Adam, my older brother, hugs me and I feel like he is acting. I feel like he is acting like a sad person. He is doing a really good imitation of a sad person. Haley, my little sister, stares at me with her big blue eyes, but she doesn’t say anything. No one really says anything.

We have a long drive. I sit in the middle with a pillow over my stomach. I am so tired. My dad drives. My mom sits in the back next to me and strokes my hair.

“Try to sleep,” she says.

We arrive at the hospital. We take an elevator to the third floor. The elevator opens and dozens of eyes fall on us. I walk to his room. His aunt is in the hallway outside his room. She looks at me, shaking, frantic, her chest heaving. I walk in. Everyone leaves except Uncle Alex. I look at Josh. He has a scrape on the upper left-hand side of his forehead and there is stubble all around his face. He hadn’t shaved since I left yesterday morning. I will remember that hair, those little buds of facial hair on his strong jaw, for the rest of my life.

“Uncle Alex,” I say. “Can you tell me,” I stop. “I don’t know anything.” I start to cry. Uncle Alex is a doctor. He actually delivered me and he delivered Josh. We thought this was such a testament to the star-aligned quality of our relationship. Now Uncle Alex is standing over Josh’s pale, still body explaining to his pregnant wife how he died. But I am happy it’s only Uncle Alex in the room. Happy? What does that word even mean now?

Uncle Alex cries. “He fell backward and hit his head. It crushed his skull into the back of his brain. He died in less than three minutes.”

Last night, right before I went to bed, Josh went out Carveboarding. A Carveboard is a modified skateboard. It rocks side to side and imitates the motion of a surfboard. Carveboards are used on pavement embankments. Josh was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident. He never wore a helmet.

Uncle Alex leaves. I cry. I cry relentlessly. My whole body shakes. I don’t touch him. I don’t hold his hand. I do not want to feel him cold.

“I’m not mad at you,” I say. “I’m not mad at you and I will take care of our son.” Those are the two things I say to him. “I’m not mad at you. I will never be mad at you. And I will take care of our son.”

I am in the waiting area. Adam and Moo are trying to get me to eat. I haven’t eaten for hours. I can’t eat. I can’t eat anything. I drink some water. Ads buys a granola bar and breaks it off into little pieces. He hands me one small piece of the granola bar.