Beyond the Bear (26 page)

CHAPTER 22

Family Man in the Dark

They say that seeing your bride the day of the wedding before
she starts her walk up the aisle is bad luck. If that’s true, it seemed logical to me that never seeing your bride would tip the odds in favor of the more desirable kind. Besides, relying on your hands to “see” the woman you love wrapped in skin-tight satin isn’t so bad.

Amber and I chose July 7 as our wedding day. The location was obvious; it had to be Arboleda, not only the center of my healing journey but the place from which we’d fallen in love all over again by phone. The week leading up to our ceremony, family and friends trickled in, coming from Alaska to Florida and many points between, to help us celebrate what three years before none of us could have imagined possible, least of all me. Cloey the Arboleda dog announced each new arrival the moment he heard the crunch of gravel at the top of the driveway. He’d run to investigate while the neighbor dogs provided backup. Within my circle of friends, it was the first time many of us had seen each other since our Prescott days, back when I was “Cedar,” the chronically smiling nature boy without a single worry cell in his body, back when I was more interested in watching a sunset than a movie, and was prone to sleeping in my truck in ski-area parking lots to get first crack at fresh powder. As we greeted each other, the ones who hadn’t seen me since the bear held onto me longer than others.

With a growing number of revelers, we began training for the big day in earnest, starting the day with Bloody Marys and ending it with late-night feasts and jam sessions around the stone barbecue pit. I still grin when I think of my bachelor party, which began inside a behemoth Hummer limousine en route from Arboleda to San Francisco—with stops at Pier 23 for happy hour and Blowfish for sushi dinner—and ended eight hours later with me in my rumpled, white-linen suit conked out on Chris Van Ness’s shoulder, one of my buddies spilling out of the limo dressed in someone else’s jacket, and another missing his boots.

The day before the wedding, a rental crew dropped off tables, chairs, and other supplies, as well as parts for a large dance floor and stage for the seven-piece ensemble, Vinyl, that we’d hired for the reception. Lee and Christy Hagmeier, who had driven down from their new home in Lacy, Washington, arrived that afternoon. Although we’d e-mailed and talked on the phone a fair amount, it was the first time Lee and I had been together since I was clearing the cobwebs of a coma out of my head.

“Hello, Dan. It’s Christy,” his wife said, walking up to give me a hug. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

Then, with her hand against the back of Lee’s arm, she gently guided him forward and helped him and me find each other. I reached out for Lee’s hand, clasped it, drew him in, wrapped my other arm around his back, and gave him a one-armed, back-slapper hug, a slightly awkward one since we’d misjudged each other’s heights, he being five-foot-eight and me, six-foot-four. In addition to being shorter than I’d imagined, he was quite a bit thinner, although that should have been no surprise since, at sixty-four, he was still a devout hiker and runner. Standing there face to face with the only person who knew exactly what I’d been through, it hit me like a flash flood how far I’d come since the day we’d met and I was so weak all I could muster was a thumbs-up.

“There’s still a lot of life worth living,” he’d told me that day. “It may not seem like it now, but you have a great deal to look forward to.” Now here I was not quite three years later proving him right, on the eve of my wedding day.

The next morning, the place was abuzz with preparations. The caterers arrived and took over the kitchen. The bar got set up and the wine delivered. Kegs of beer got wrestled into tubs of ice. Friends and family helped set up the area for the reception, to be held beneath a canopy of live oaks and old-growth sycamore trees. They arranged tables and chairs, draped white linens over the tabletops, and plunked centerpieces down in the middle. Climbing up and down a ladder, a lighting man strung lights all through the trees and down the driveway, and my friend, Kevin Gregory, who does stage sound for Yonder Mountain String Band, got the sound system up and ready. My soon-to-be father-in-law got set up to invoke his Slovenian late-night wedding tradition of passing out cigars and blasting polka tunes after the band called it a night.

Amber and I had made camp in the master bedroom upstairs, but were getting ready in separate rooms with our respective entourages, which included our best friends, Jay McCollum as best man and Bekkie Volino Robinson, who’d married one of the Photonz, as matron of honor. I’d agreed to the dark suit, no problem, but lost the footwear battle of wills to Amber, Queen of Shoes. So no flip-flops for me.

Midafternoon, Amber and I met up in the Secret Garden, a jade-colored lawn with a backdrop of grapevines, fruit trees, and lavender bushes that trimmed the place in purple. My Prescott friend and spiritual mentor, Blair Carter, presided over our ceremony, as he had over my vision at the Russian River, of my loved ones circled around once I’d made the decision to live. It was there, in the blue place, I came to realize we are never alone, that those who love us are omnipresent in some alternate dimension, or whatever you want to call it. They were with me at the doorstep of death. They helped guide me back. Blair and his girlfriend in college, Martha McCord, also showed up like guardian spirits in the psychedelic circus of my drug-induced coma. Standing with Amber in front of those two and a lawn-full of family and friends, I was overcome by that same vortex of love that kept my heart beating the night of the bear.

As Blair and Martha filled the air with the harmonic tones of Tibetan singing bowls and my former roommate, Jamie Berggren, played didgeridoo, Amber and I exchanged secret vows. We shared the moment between just us, expressing our love for each other, holding hands, leaning in close, whispering words meant only for each other to hear.

There’s always been something familiar about you, Amber, as if we’ve always known each other, as if we loved each other in another lifetime and were meant to find each other again in this one. I adore and cherish you, and will do everything in my power to create the best possible life for you, for us, and for the family we hope to create. I will forever be faithful to your best interests, and support you on your life’s journey. Nobody knows better than we do how uncertain life can be. But there’s one thing I am certain of: I will love you more tomorrow than I do today. I love you Amber Takavitz. I love you with every cell of my body.

Two months after the wedding, I was propped up in bed with my morning cup of coffee when I heard Amber calling out from the bathroom:

“Ahh, honey?”

We weren’t going out of our way to get pregnant. We just weren’t going out of our way not to. We’d had many discussions about our hopes of having kids someday, “someday” being the key word. Just because we wanted it to happen didn’t mean it would. We had several friends who’d been trying and trying without luck, so we didn’t expect it to be any different for us. We were so convinced that “someday” was down the road that we’d just stocked up on pregnancy test kits from Costco.

Amber was getting ready for work that morning when, feeling a bit off, she took a moment to try out one of those strips. Afterward, she set it on the bathroom counter, turned on the faucet, washed her hands, grabbed a hand towel, glanced down at the test, and stared in disbelief as a plus sign emerged. She blinked hard, picked it up for closer inspection, and instantly felt feather-headed.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she called to me, her head poking out of the bathroom doorway. “This thing says I’m pregnant.”

I sat straight up in bed, nearly sloshing my coffee in my lap. “What!? Are you serious? Are you sure?”

“I’m pretty damn sure. It’s a plus sign, not a minus. That means we’re pregnant.”

“We’re having a baby? Us? You and me? A baby? Holy cow.”

We were simultaneously stoked and terrified, the way a first-time skydiver must feel stepping into thin air. I lifted up the covers; Amber crawled back into bed beside me. We held onto each other as we tried to imagine our lives furnished with car seats and strollers. About an hour after Amber left for work, the phone rang.

“Can you believe I’m pregnant? Me. Pregnant.”

“I can’t, but it’s awesome. I couldn’t be happier.”

Amber’s pregnancy came so soon after the wedding, it had our families stopping to do the math. Both her parents and mine had concerns about me as a father. Like, how does a dad with no eyes keep an eye on his kids? And how does a blind dad keep from knocking his toddlers down the stairs? (That one, as it’s turned out, was good reason for worry. Unfortunately I’ve heard that
thump-thump
sound a time or two.) Both of our families knew we had big challenges ahead, particularly for Amber who’d be carrying more than her share of the load. Still, they were thrilled for us.

Amber and I took prenatal and birthing classes together. We read a pile of books on childbirth and parenting. Amber did expectant mom exercises, prenatal yoga, massage, and chiropractic. She drank enough raspberry leaf tea to float a boat. When we found out our baby was a boy, we named him Alden, meaning “old friend.” Every night before drifting off to sleep, I’d scrunch down under the covers, lean over, and whisper into Amber’s bellybutton.

“I hope you let your mama sleep tonight, Alden. No kicking a soccer ball around in there until tomorrow morning, okay, buddy? Can’t wait to meet you. Goodnight, Alden. I love you.”

Amber, one of those pregnant women who glowed and relished every aspect of the experience, had her heart set on a home birth with a midwife, and self-hypnosis and guided imagery as pain control. About a week before Alden was due, we were just sitting down to dinner at Bekkie and Ben Robinson’s place when Amber disappeared into their bathroom. We waited and waited. I took a bite of my salad. I fidgeted with my fork. I took another bite.

“Hey, Amber, you okay in there?”

“Ahh, Bekkie, could you come in here a minute?”

She scooted back her chair, got up, and strode to the bathroom.

“I’m really sorry, but I’ve made a big mess.”

“Oh my god, Amber, your water broke.”

“But I’ve made a mess. Do you have something I can use to clean this up?”

“What are you talking about? Don’t you worry about that. You’re going to have a baby.”

As I heard this back and forth from the dinner table, I set down my fork and laughed out loud, not only because it was so Amber not to want to inconvenience anyone, but because it meant we were only hours away from holding our son. Amber wasn’t feeling any contractions yet, so she cleaned up and joined us, and our dinner became a celebratory one. We stuffed ourselves, not knowing when we’d get the chance to eat again. Afterward, we gave our midwife, Laura Gore, a call.

“Why don’t you head home and try to get some rest,” she advised us. “You’ll need it when the time comes.”

Back home we were too excited to sleep. Instead, we tried various techniques to induce labor, including Amber walking up and down the stairs and around and around the block, then up and down and around some more. For hours we tried everything in and out of the books to coax Alden to get a move on so he could be born at home. It wasn’t to be. Twenty-four hours after her water broke, we had no choice but to go to the hospital due to the risk of infection. Amber was in tears; after her unflinching commitment to natural childbirth, she was going to have the birthing experience opposite of what she’d wanted.

“I feel like a failure,” she sobbed.

“Oh Amber, no. Please don’t think that way,” I told her, rubbing her back. “That’s the last thing you are. It wasn’t in the cards is all.”

At the hospital, after eight hours on a Pitocin drip, Alden was still holed up tight and Amber was writhing in vise-grip contractions. Suddenly, the number of those tending to her went from one, to three, to what sounded to me like a crowd, with everyone speaking in medical lingo and terse tones.

“Dan, we’re going to have to ask you to move aside.”

Amber and I had been holding hands, and she’d squeezed mine so hard during contractions that it ached. I let go and took a couple of steps backward.

“Everything’s going to be okay, honey,” I assured her. “You’re in great hands.”

“Here’s what’s happening,” the doctor explained. “Amber’s contractions have been getting stronger but the baby’s not budging. The contractions are squeezing him and squeezing him, and his heart rate has dropped to a level where we feel it’s best to go in and get him.”

I’d had a lot of practice so was able to keep my panic under wraps. I stood stiffly off to the side as everyone else in the room hustled. I heard the rustling of bed sheets and the snapping of Latex. I heard Amber sobbing. Someone rattled papers for her to sign authorizing a Cesarean. I tugged hard on my beard and chewed my lower lip.

In the operating room, scrubbed and dressed in a paper gown, cap, and booties, I stood beside Amber with her hand in mine. Sitting up on the operating table, she groaned as the epidural needle slid into her spine. A nurse helped her lie down on her back. With an oxygen mask over her face, she was unable to speak. She pulled it off, turned her head to the side, and threw up.