Olivia & Me
By Mike Coon
The early morning of January 14th, 2010 I woke to the beeping alarm, rolled out of bed and prepared for work. My groggy thoughts moved toward the weather, the commute and the workday ahead. But soon I realized something was very wrong. Very wrong. And I was definitely awake then. Figuring out what it was didn’t take long, but having it register and make sense did.
My thirty-six year old wife of ten years, Kim, had died in her sleep.
I picked up our baby from where she’d slept between us and held her while my head tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Of all the things Kim and I had considered as potential problems or distressful circumstances, this wasn’t one. With almost a decade difference in our age differences, we thought I’d go first—after Olivia was through college and established.
I held my daughter close and made two calls—911 and work —knowing I’d have to phone Kim’s mother and the rest of our families. I couldn’t even think about friends. Once the emergency and law enforcement people arrived, things took on a life of their own.
The next few days became a busy blur—mortuary arrangements, church and pastor schedules, and . . . daycare. At almost twenty-months old, Olivia had never spent any time away from at least one of her parents. All her food was organic. Her schedule was that of a night person, as was my wife’s. This arrangement worked out well because it afforded Olivia and I time from when I got home until I absolutely had to go to bed. Olivia was and is Daddy’s Girl, which turned out to work in our favor on the long haul.
Over the following week, with the exception of my job and home, everything in our lives changed. Suddenly, I was a single parent with a million ends hanging out and a toddler who needed to be mainstreamed into the most basic things like being cared for by someone other than a parent. I had to start thinking like two parents and take on the things Kim did so effortlessly. She had a talent for organizing schedules. Everything was written on our calendar hanging in the kitchen. It hung there long after January turned to the sporadic entries of February, then an empty March.
There had been other recent changes in our lives. My Mom and Step- Dad Dan had just moved back to Texas and lived only seventy miles away. She recommended Primrose School and told me there was one not far from where I worked. My nephew Ian is two years older than Olivia and lives up in Dallas where he attends a Primrose School, loves it, and so do his parents. Fortunately, the school fairly near where I work made an opening for Olivia so I signed her up immediately. It’s turned out to be a good move on my part which has benefitted my daughter a lot.
The funeral service held at Kim’s family church was a tribute to her life. Family and friends attended and all wanted to know what they could do for us. But it was hard to tell them how they might or could help. Everything was still so raw and new, and I was feeling my way down this road of single dad-hood one day at a time.
Even in sorrow, the innocence of children can bring joy to those around them. Directly after the service for Kim, the ladies of the church put on a reception with food and beverages. My shy, clinging vine daughter became persuaded by her cousin Ian to hold his hand. Then off they went with my Mom and Aunt alternately following as they ran around the hall laughing, giggling, and acting like two toddlers who wound up making everyone smile and laugh. There is nothing like the unfettered joy of little ones to lift hearts and spirits.
It was a week before I went back to work. My boss called every day to support me; my coworkers had donated generous amounts of vacation time to my account. Most of my coworkers are married and have young kids. They didn’t want to even imagine what I was going through happening to them.
Meanwhile, Olivia and I worked on changing her sleeping schedule and finding a new normalcy. And she continued looking and calling for Mama. She saw a lot of my Mom who came over to the house. We worked on visiting her, then leaving Olivia with her for a few hours while my Step-Dad Dan and I played golf. This worked well because she kept Olivia busy, then put her down for a nap so she didn’t have time to consider Daddy being gone. On the other hand, I hadn’t realized how much I needed a couple of hours doing what I wanted to do without worry. To say that my Mom was an invaluable help would be an understatement.
The first week of preschool was traumatic for both of us. Thanks to some good advice from my sister in Dallas, I did the drop and dash. Trouble was, when I dashed, I’d left my heart with my sobbing daughter calling for me. The teachers knew how to distract her and settled her down right away. She did fine. Better than I did.
The next surprise came when Olivia got sick a lot the first five months of school. We entered into a “sick cycle”. She hadn’t been around other kids, so she caught every bug in the preschool Petri dish. Sometimes I drew on the well of hours donated by my coworkers to stay home and take care of her; other times Mom came down or I took Olivia up to her place. They shared books, toys, blankets, germs, naps, and Mom got good at fixing bottles in the middle of the night again. Seemed just about when Mom got well, Olivia got sick again. Now, they’ve both got much stronger immune systems. Guess I can thank my coworkers for bringing in their kids’ germs over the years. I didn’t get any of Olivia’s illnesses, I’d had them all recently enough to have immunity.
Day by day, Olivia and I adapted to the changes in our lives. She no longer looks for Mama, though she does occasionally call for her at night. These days, Olivia looks at the photos around the houses and proudly tells whoever she’s with, “Mama!” I’ve saved the things special to Kim as a legacy. Close friends and family have written up accounts of Kim so her daughter will get an idea of her mother’s personality and how she impacted those she loved.
Today, Olivia often struggles with the 5:15 a.m. get up time so we’re out of the house by 5:30, but that’s getting better too. Seems most of the days she gets up early on her own are the weekends. It’s like she has a special clock with an alarm that says, “Don’t let Daddy have an extra hour of sleep.”
Mom kept telling me, “Consistency. It’s a pain to enforce, but it’s your best friend.” Turns out she’s right. Routine rules with two-year-olds. Olivia has ours down pat. Almost nine months after Kim’s death, my daughter and I have a solid daily routine. She has flourished at her school. Sometimes, it seems she’s growing up too fast as she starts to string words together for sentences. Each morning she gets to choose what she’s going to wear to school. She also likes to go shopping; she chooses which clothes to buy and is pretty fussy. When she puts it in the basket, she doesn’t change her mind. Personally, I think this is a good thing. She’s got a better fashion sense than I do.
When we get home at 5:30 p.m. with no stops, we change clothes right away. I put on my grubbiest. She puts on a frilly dress. Did I mention she’s a girly-frilly girl? I make dinner. We color while it cooks. We eat while Wonder Pets and the Backyardigans are on TV. We read books, play for a while, and straighten things up, then its bath time and to bed.
Once she’s down, I clean up the kitchen, feeds the animals, do laundry, take care of whatever needs to be done, then set up for the next day. If I have a little time, I’ll watch one of the sports events or shows I’ve stored on the DVR. I keep in close contact with special friends and family on the phone. Weekends are for chores, visiting, and fun.
To most people it probably sounds like I’ve got a dull, boring life mired in routine. To me, this is the challenge of a lifetime. I love being Olivia’s Dad.
Though it’s been less than a year since Kim died, I’ve learned some valuable lessons about being a single dad.
- Faith is essential.
- Have a schedule, a routine you stick to with little ones. It makes them comfortable (even though they balk at times and push back; that’s their job).
- When it comes to your child, listen to suggestions, weigh the input, then look at your child and follow your gut instincts. No one knows your kid better than you do.
- Develop reliable backup systems—someone who can and will step in during illness or for caretaking when you have a business trip.
- Prepare for tomorrow the night before. It makes getting out of the house lots easier. Don’t forget to read the info the preschool sends home the night before, too.
- Be positive and upbeat. My daughter finds my attitude contagious.
- When offered help, take it. People genuinely want to help you and your child(ren). Child-raising isn’t a macho test.
- Ask. Read or listen to books on tape on child-raising. I never have all the answers.
- Pare down and simplify your life. You usually know what needs to be done, but the “doing” is sometimes difficult, but well worth the effort. Obligations for which I don’t have time become anvils I’m dragging around, so I make few commitments.
- Use good time management skills.
- Most of all, enjoy your child(ren). My wife artistically wrote on our living room wall: “Our child has only one childhood.” I try to remember that I am my daughter’s hero (not the prince) in her princess fairytale, and keep my “king” shoes handy.
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