Minnesota native couple, Matt and Lislogelin seemed able to handle anything from high school to a long, distant relationship, from getting impressive jobs to starting a family. Everything was going great until their daughter was born. Then tragedy changed. Change their lives forever.
Liz first met Matt at a gas station when they were both high schooled seniors and mispronounced his name. It sparked the beginning of a fairy tale love story, and the two love birds became inseparable until his time to go to school. The sweethearts attended different colleges, with Liz going to California while Matt enrolled in a local University.
Mother rest with her newborn baby in bed immediately after a natural water birth labour. Concept photo of pregnant woman, newborn, baby, pregnancy
The distance didn’t separate them, though. When Matt was hesitating whether to pursue a Ph.D. after completing his master’s degree, he made a life-changing decision. After all those years apart, Matt decided to move halfway across the country to be with his beloved in Los Angeles. From there, the two took life by the horns. They traveled the world and made new memories together with life and love.
Seemingly on their side. Matt proposed to Liz in Nepal. After exchanging vows in 2005. Matt and Liz were ecstatic to start their lives together, and they seemed to be going great. With Matt being a project manager at Yahoo and Liz, a financial executive at Disney.
The couple bought a house together, but the happiness didn’t end there. Two years after their marriage, the young couple found that they were expecting their first child, a girl. They couldn’t wait to share the joyous news with their near and dear, but as they couldn’t all be around, they thrilled parents to be started a pregnancy blog to keep them in the loop. They kept people regularly updated on Liz’s progress with adorable photos on the blog. However, Liz’s pregnancy was not an easy one.
Usually healthy and active
Liz suffered from severe morning sickness and was even hospitalized for a couple of weeks after her pregnancy was classified as high risk. Meanwhile, Matt kept a watchful eye on his wife and continued to update their pregnancy blog. On March 24, 2008, the pair welcomed their daughter, Madeleine Maddie into the world through cesarean. Weighing barely £3.
14oz, Maddie was hurriedly sent to the neonatal ICU after Liz saw her baby girl briefly overjoyed, Matt announced the birth on the blog. Madeleine is here. The proud parents will continue to update everyone on their beautiful baby. Look forward to evening more good news, he added, but he’d never have imagined the words he’d soon be writing. Let’s couldn’t wait to hold her daughter.
However, doctors ordered her to have 24 more hours of bed rest
Before she was willed to see her baby. It was a moment both Liz and Matt had long been waiting for, but when the three of them could have some much-needed bonding time, tragedy struck when Matt caringly helped Liz into the wheelchair, Liz suddenly uttered. I feel lightheaded and collapsed in his arms. Though the nurses told him that fainting is common among new moms. Matt felt that something was in right with his dear wife.
Only 24 hours after giving birth to Matt Aline, a rare fatal pulmonary embolism tragically took over Liz’s life at just 30 years old. Devastated, Matt was left reeling. She was never going to hold her baby, Matt painstakingly recalled. In just one day, Matt had gone from an ecstatic new father to a devastated Vidor. He had expected to fill the pregnancy blog with Dodding pictures of the happy family, but instead, his next boast was a heartbreaking one.
On the same day My world fell apart, he mournfully wrote. Matt simultaneously found himself to be a grief-stricken Riddler and an enamored new father left navigating the confusing onslaught of emotions. He was floored by the Todd of raising newborn Maddie by himself. He went to the Ward and held his infant daughter for the first time. When Matt finally got to bring Maddie home for the first time, he felt the house alive again for the first few weeks after Liz died had been agonizing, but Matt was emboldened by the thought that his daughter needed him, that a part of his wife lived on in her.
To channel his intense feelings
Matt started posting to an online parenting forum. He also refashioned his and Liz’s pregnancy blog into a personal parenting blog. The single father found some solace in writing. He also received useful advice on how to care for a baby from parents in similar situations, Matt’s blog, now called Matt, Liz, and Madeleine life and death all in 27 hours period, would be a meaningful virtual scrapbook for Madeline. It produced something inspiring and incredible out of tragedy.
Soon, the forum became a widespread cathartic outlet, attracting tens of thousands of views daily. Along with their valuable words. The blog also provided a rallying point for something truly heartfelt. Apart from good wishes, the single father started to receive a variety of items like diaper bags, baby nail Clippers, and baby clothes that soon filled the modest living room of their home. I never imagined that people would care about us the way they do, Matt gratefully said.
With the help of some of his avid readers
Matt set up a charity organization in Liz’s name. Considering Liz herself was a runner, the foundation organized Five K walks and runs in Liz’s hometown, and all the money raised was given away to the widows and widowers Matt had met through his blog, run by volunteers. The foundation also held a Celebration of Hope gala on the weekend closest to Liz’s birthday on September 17 and an event called Five K Walk. One Hope around the World. All the profits from these activities go directly to the Liz Lodge Lynn Foundation, but the story doesn’t end there.
As time passed, Matt was struck by how much his daughter resembled his late wife. He realized that in many ways in his blog is a love letter to Madeline and Liz. I want Madeline to know that her dad didn’t just curl up in a ball and start drinking heavily. I wanted her to know that I was out there doing as much as I could for her and trying to make her happy as I could, Matt said. In 2009, with Maddie by his side, Matt traveled to India, where he penned a memoir titled Two Kisses for Maddie, a memoir of loss and love.
India was a place of particular significance
as Matt and Liz had traveled there after their wedding, the book became an instant New York Times bestseller, and there was more good fortune in store. In 2016, word started to circulate that Channing Tatum was going to take on a big-budget Hollywood film adaptation of the book, the famous actress later to serve as executive producer and might even starve in the pending father-daughter drama. So Where Does It All Leave? Matt and Maddie? After the memoir, Matt co-authored his friend Sarah Jensen, a children’s book named Be Glad Your Dad Is Not an Octopus.
It’s a humorous, grated version of the Would You Rather Game, accompanied by adorable illustrations by Jared Chapman, and has been getting rave reviews. Maddie turned ten years old on March 24, 2018. That date also marked ten years since the tragic death of her mother. Over the years, Maddie has grown to know her mother through stories and pictures. She also got involved in the Foundation’s activities and even tried outside of the organization’s usual activities.
All these years
Matt had done everything in his power to surround his daughter with love and happiness to honor his late wife, Lizzie’s memory. His story provides a valuable learning example for others on how to pick yourself up from a tragedy and make the best out of what seems like an impossible situation.