Category: A Kiss Before You Go

I am delving back into the journals that were the basis for my new book, AKissB4UGo. Many pages never made it into the published book but still have lots of meaning for me. If you don’t mind, I’ll share them with you over the next few weeks.

After Patti died, I was often struck by the same thought. I would meet a new person, see a new store opening, hear of a new baby being born, or read of a major world event in the newspaper — and each time I would think, “Well, Patti will never know about that.” The world was just going on without her.

This page is an attempt to record that thought. I wrote about the various buildings that New York University is constructing across the street from our apartment. One is a new Catholic center that was just being built; they hadn’t even broken ground when Patti died but now it’s a regular part of the landscape and every day  students go in and out praying for better grades.

If you can decipher my handwriting, you’ll see this story about the NYU student center that was built next door to the Catholic Center a decade or so ago. At the time, Patti became friends with the construction crew and convinced the foreman to spray paint a message across one of the structural I-beams at the same height as our kitchen window. One day I looked out the window and noticed the words, six feet high and in bright fluorescent orange: “Patti loves Danny.”

Eventually they plastered over the message and finished constructing the building but I know that those letters are still on that I-beam, to be found by some future civilization who will discover that we loved each other.

This story’s a little complicated, and I never was in love with my drawing of the buildings, so this page like many others did not end up in the final book.

I am delving back into the journals that were the basis for my new book, AKissB4UGo. Many pages never made it into the published book but still have lots of meaning for me. If you don’t mind, I’ll share them with you over the next few weeks.

Patti left behind a lot of possessions. Years later I’m still going through them. At first I was wracked with guilt at the thought of throwing away anything that she’d ever touched. I just put it back in the box to wait until my heart had hardened a little more.

Some of the things became easier to part with. Patti was a huge collector of newspaper clippings and postcards and had big piles of letters and notes and shopping lists and I went through them over time, sifting them into smaller and smaller groups and filling garbage bags with stuff that meant nothing to me anymore. But there are also many things that I found it hard to part with. Patti’s apron collection is one of them. She loved aprons and pick them up and thrift stores and flea markets and had dozens more than she could ever wear. I still wear them when I do the washing up for cooking a tomato sauce but there’s only so many aprons a man needs.

Of course I think about Jack when I’m going through this process. What will he want of his mother’s? Will he have some future wife who will share Patti’s love for these things? How awful if I’ve thrown away every trace of her obsessions.

I tried carefully through the things that Patty left behind and trying to be a good curator. Of course these things are just things and I don’t really need to be reminded of Patti by an apron or a sale circular or even a love letter. But things also carry the traces of people and one has to handle them carefully and not be overwhelmed by the need to bulldoze the past away, as if clearing my closets of her presence will somehow eliminate the last vestiges of pain.

I don’t know if all those thoughts are evident in this spread from my journal. Probably not. And it was hard to do justice to the beautiful designs of her aprons in a wearily done watercolor, so this spread, like many others, remained in my journal and didn’t make it into the final version of the book.

 

My new book, A Kiss Before You Go (I’ve taken to calling it AKissB4UGo, but then I’ve always been a Prince fan), is about to arrive in stores and I’ve been thinking a lot about the last couple of years in which I made it. It’s the favorite of my books, the one I love the most, yet, of course, it’s a book I never wanted to write.

To write a book about losing Patti seems like insanity. To take the worst thing that ever happened to me and turn it into art and share it with everyone? It’s a crazy idea.

The first time I gave the book to Jack, the person to whom I had dedicated the book, his reaction was, “Dad, I already went through this once. I don’t know if I want to go over it again.” For him, reading the book was reliving the worst of times. But it hasn’t been like that for me and I’ll try to tell you why.

My life changed so much while I wrote it. I started it bereft, confused, having no idea where my life was going to go, if my life could even continue. I didn’t know if I could be a father. I didn’t know if I could go back to work. I was going through feelings and fears unlike anything I’d ever been through before. But, despite all of the pain, it seemed like an incredibly important time in my life. The time in which maybe I could learn some things that Patti seemed to pick up over the last 20 years. How to accept what life gives me. To see the good in other people To understand the real value of being alive. Little things like that. That first summer Jack broke his wrist and the doctor told us that once the bone healed it would be stronger than ever. The place where you break becomes the place you can lean on.

I’ve been keeping an illustrated journal for so long. I’ve recorded the things that I’ve eaten, the places I’ve gone, the people and critters that surround me. But after Patti died, my journal had a whole new purpose. This time seemed like it was full of lessons. And it seems like if I let those lessons and experiences and revelations slip through my fingers rather than taking them as blessings and gifts I would be wasting the most important experience of my life. I would be doing Patti a disservice, a terrible one. She learned to turn the horror of her disability into a life transforming act. She had become wise and generous person over the years she spent in that wheelchair. She helped others. She had developed grace.

And while I may not be able to hope for the same, every day I sense her spirit in me. And that spirit was guiding me to seek the importance in life. To understand… something, I didn’t know what. So I became like a student taking notes in class. Writing down my thoughts, my dreams, the revelations that I was handed as I looked at these everyday things around me. Suddenly scrubbing the floor, buying some ice cream, watching my dog sleep in the sun, felt full of significance. I didn’t fully understand that significance, I don’t know that I still do yet, but I was damned if I was going to let it slip to my fingers. So I wrote in my journal and I drew and painted the things around me. I captured them and held onto them. And slowly but surely I filled book after book with drawings and truths.

A good book is a journey. The hero confronts difficulties and emerges transformed. But my journey wasn’t fiction, it was real life. It didn’t have such a neat conclusion. There wasn’t a moment where I stood on a mountain as the sun broke through the clouds and revealed the truth in all its glory. Life isn’t that easy.

But there’s no question this journey has changed me. It revealed and reordered my priorities. It has taken away my greatest fears. The fear of losing everything. Material possessions. Loved ones. And the greatest fear of all, the fear of my own death. But I am not nihilistic, cynical or jaded. I am purged.

I sit in my home alone as I write this. My wife is gone. My son is gone. My dogs are asleep. And I am fine.

Because Patti — even though she’s reduced to the ashes in the cookie jar on the bookshelf in my living room — is also inside of me. I don’t mean this in a spiritual, mumbo-jumbo kind of way. I don’t mean it in a Jesus, afterlife, heavenly kind of way. And I don’t mean it in a ghostly astral projection, Patrick Swayze kind of way either.

I just mean that the memory of Patti Lynn Gregory, the example that she set, the warmth and caring that was in her, affect me every day. She lives on in this feeling inside me. And that is something I need to share. I need to share it with the people around me and I need to share with people around the world. And that’s with this book is for.

Have these words made you want to read my book? Or scared you off? Have I made it seem heavy and grim? I promise you it’s not.

I’ve lived through sad and scary times. But this book isn’t terribly sad or scary. It’s about life. It’s about love and it’s about how you carry on. Which is something that all of us need to keep on doing, whether we’ve suffered a loss or not.

These days, I’m a positive and fulfilled person. And I don’t regret anything that happened to me. In the time since I started writing this book, I’ve learned how to be happy in my own skin. To accept what happens to me. And to be truly glad of each day. I haven’t completed the journey and there are certainly times I feel like I still have a long way to go. But I know I’m headed in the right direction. And I’d like to share with you what it’s been like. So that it will matter. And so that Patti’s life will matter.

Okay, in the next days and weeks, I’d like to tell you more about the book and how it came about and what’s in it and show you some the things that aren’t in it so you can get a good sense of what it’s all about. I’d also love to hear other people’s impressions of the AKissB4UGo. What do you think? You can find out by picking up a copy at your local bookstore or online. And then please, please write to me and let me know if you like it and what it means to you. Oh, and share it with friends. As I’ve said, my goal in all this is to share my experience so others can benefit from it — the more the merrier.

Thanks, and stay tuned.

I love Maira Kalman’s work. I’m sure you’ve seen her books and illustrations. I have long been a big fan of her husband Tibor Kalman, one of the great designers of the last century. He passed away at a youngish age, like Patti. I just got this letter from Maira, somewhat delayed by the storm. I am awed.

My book has now officially shipped from Chronicle’s warehouses and is wending its way to bookstores. I checked with my local Barnes & Noble and they said it’d be in the Biography section on November 28th. Amazon also predicts they’ll have it in customer’s mailboxes on the same date. If you’d like to preorder one on line, you can do it here.

If you just can’t wait, check out this trailer for the book. It’ll give you a healthy taste of what’s to come. I hope it whets your appetite!

If you would like to add this video to your own blog or Facebook page, I would be so happy and grateful. All you need to do is click on the share button on the upper right hand side of the screen and a window will open with code you can copy. If you need help doing it, let me know.

I had a lot of help from my friends in making this video: Butch Belair (remember him from this film?) did all the incredible special effects. Ben Lear composed the lovely soundtrack, “Scuba Lessons”.
My old pal, Tom Jucarone at Sound Lounge, recorded my voiceover and made the whole thing sound amazing. And I got a lot of great advice and guidance from my brilliant friends, JJ WIlmoth, Tommy Kane and Bruce Davidson.
Order your copy today!

These just arrived. The first three copies of my next book.

I’m still not sure how to feel.