A note about my Wife, on her birthday. 1.19.75

In 1975, in Himachal Pradesh, India, some dust fell from an old bookshelf. A few glasses rattled in a long neglected armoire and chimed out the tune of low grade ceramics being quickly pulled and pushed towards each other. The ground felt like two quarters had been pushed into an old Magic Fingers vibrating bed.

Soon after, tile from rooftops clattered on the ground. Animals bellowed in fear and humans ran into doorways, steel clawed baths and under anything they deemed secure enough to protect them and their families.

In the aftermath of the seismic event and the subsequent rock falls, avalanches and landslides in its wake, it was rated a 6.2 earthquake with an intensity of IX, which is considered “Violent” on the Mercalli Intensity scale.

47 people died and restoration on many of the sacred buildings and temples in the valley of Himachal Pradesh were still under restoration until late in the 20th century.

7,831 miles away, a 16 year old named Donna Simpson was overwhelmed. Feet in stirrups,

2:02pm. She was already eight hours into this.

Around 6:00am, earlier that morning, her husband Donny had been fast asleep when Donna’s water broke, and she woke him up to let him know that the situation was intensifying quickly. He jumped out of bed and promptly put on his work clothes.

She asked him, incredulously, what he was doing — to which he replied “I’m going to work, because there ain’t no way you’re having a baby without screaming and yelling. And you aren’t screaming and yelling.”

Some screaming and yelling later, they were on their way to St. Vincent’s Hospital, with funny breathing and weird grimaces and Donny trying his best to skillfully avoid traffic lights and get his wife out of his car and into that E.R.

Fast forward back to 2:02pm CST. Contractions were getting closer together. Donna felt a hard kick.

At the exact same time, 8:02pm UTC, The inhabitants of Himachal Pradesh, India felt their world collapsing around them. Ancient temples, split in half. Roads leading to Tibet, fractured by huge cracks and sinkholes, swallowing cars and destroying thousands of years of rock formations, human-made shrines to monastic bastions of peace and harmony and more.

Which leads us to this.

There is a balance in the universe. When one thing is beautiful, it is beautiful, and nothing else is what that thing is. So, transformation comes into play. If a thing that is beautiful is rendered ugly or, worse yet, destroyed, then something new can be created. To potentially fill the beauty void that the destruction of what was once beautiful had so cruelly taken from wandering eyeballs.

Four hours after that kick, eyes were widen and a great number of people who all looked like each other were full of pleasurable sensations that their nucelus accumbens were squirting out by virtue of a dopamine tsunami that was the birth of the one, the only, the incomparable Amanda Joanna Beck.

For those that know her, this will be no shock.

She progressed through things quickly. Walking and talking at 12 months, 14 days. Her skill with a paintbrush is legendary and her prowess in the act of creating visually stunning artwork led to countless awards and even the indecency of an actual art instructor stealing her work when she was their student.

She was Smart and Saucy. Adventurous. A little bit of tomboy and a whole lot of lady. Talented beyond her years and pretty, even through those awkward teenage years. She suffered through braces, and unfortunate haircuts her parents gave her (that still make her bristle when she sees those looks today) and outfits that made her appear like a 1970’s live action version of Strawberry Shortcake.

But she was mostly happy. A Rose City kid, playing with cousins, living with Mom and Dad and seeing her relatives on both sides frequently.

Once she hit her teenage years, Donny and Donna had already parted ways, but not before having a second daughter, Samantha. Sam is a lot like Mandy in the looks department, but is a vastly different person in every other way. But the 13 year age gap was weird, especially when there was only a 16 year age gap between Mandy and *her* Mom. Donna was in nursing school, so a lot of the responsibility of raising Sam went to her Sister-Mom, Mandy. From the pictures I’ve personally seen and the stories that are told, “Sam came out crying and hasn’t stopped yet” (That’s Donna’s joke) Sam, now in her mid-20’s has moved out and is making a life for herself.

But back then it was watching The Little Mermaid every. single. day. and Mandy trying to wrangle this li’l monster baby sister. That is until Parkview magnet arts school came calling because of her art skills.

The bad part? She wasn’t zoned for Parkview…but her Aunt Katherine and Grandfather Simpson were. So, she moved to Hillcrest, and became the art kid she was born to be. Getting into mischief, having fun and being a lovable teenage weirdo. She had one best friend who could (and did) rip lockers off of a wall, and bunch of others with myriad talents, but she was the standout.

At least to me.

Some history — I met her online. Before Match or Farmers Only. Organically.

She was out of school and married at this point. She wasn’t happy at home and her husband treated her like an afterthought. He was rude. He was verbally abusive. She’d had enough of it and just talked to me any chance we both got, online. One day she said that she ought to come to Nashville sometime for a show. I said that would be very good, and I threw out a few show options. She heard “Pink Cigarette” from one of my favorite bands Mr. Bungle, and decided to come down and see me for that show. It was November 16, 1999. I know because I still have the ticket stub. I went to meet her at a hotel she had rented (I was still living with my parents) and had on a Hawaiian shirt under a hoodie, which I’d inadvertently zipped into my zipper right before she opened the door. I said something about how “Always making a good impression by looking really cool” was important.

We ate at Subway and I could not stop looking at her. She has these eyes, they glisten. They’re big and blue and sometimes they look silverish when the light hits them just right.

We were heading to my friend Jeremy’s house to give him a ride to the same show when I realized halfway there that I’d been so nervous to meet her that I’d forgotten our tickets. So I got ball busted for that and made a lightning bolt fast trip upstairs and back with tickets in hand, racing against time to get to 328 Performance hall before the show began.

Once there, Jeremy splintered off with other friends of ours that had arrived separately and I stuck with Mandy and we stood in the back of 328, being quiet. Me, just as I do now, trying to break uncomfortable silences with jokes. I’m sure the jokes were funny then because she hadn’t had to hear them for the past gazillion years.

But we had a good time and Mike Patton and his crew did not disappoint. We left the show happy and got all the way back to her hotel, and I walked her inside and had butterflies in my stomach and she gave me a long hug that sent my guts into knots before saying good night and closing her door.

I went home and my mind was racing. Who was this person?! Artistic, just like me. Just went to a Mr. Bungle show with me. Love wrestling like me. Loves tacky weird filthy stuff like me. She’s a girl with an amazing sense of humor and that is so rare and WHY IS SHE MARRRRRIED????

Just my luck. I found the girl I wanted and she was already. freakin’. married. The next day she gave me a call, or I gave her a call. It’s hard to remember. The point is we were in contact, and she had a few hours before she had to leave to go back to Arkansas, so I invited her over to my house and we, no joke, watched gruesome death match wrestling tapes where Abdullah the Butcher would stab Cactus Jack in the face with a fork and then backdrop him onto exploding plywood covered in barb wire.”Dear lord no other girl would ever like this. This SUCKS SO MUCH.”

Then we got online to point out the novelty to our internet message board buddies that “haha, we know each other from the internet and haha we are in the same room and haha we’re *pretty* sure Matt isn’t a homicidal killer!” Finally, it was time for her to go home on the six hour drive to Little Rock. We hugged, maybe for a little too long. But it wasn’t a brief “see ya later, buddy!” sort of hug.

The hug broke and we were both were blatantly, obviously delaying the inevitability of her leaving. We had just had fun, gone out, saw some culture, ate some terrible sandwiches, watched wrestling…it had been a great two days! Plus she was beautiful!

I took my shot and went in for a kiss. She didn’t fight back or push me away.

She drove home for the longest six hours of my life, waiting to hear from her again, and told her husband they were getting a divorce. Few months of long distance relationship ensued, she’d drive down to see me. I’d fly up to see her. We still talked hours a day on the internet. I cut off my friends, focusing all my time on Mandy. It was worth it. This is going to be something big, I could feel it.

Finally, we’d had enough. She moved to Middle Tennessee, brought the cats (Stinky and Trixie) and most of her stuff. We both worked in Franklin, TN at Rio Bravo cantina. She was an amazing waitress, and I was a back of the house dishwasher and prep cook. We had a lot of late nights and close calls and fun with food service friends. It was crazy and fun and you got to meet interesting people and occasionally eat tons of Mexican food for free. I was still going to Watkins College of Art and Design then, and after a frustrating semester not getting to use editing software that I knew was the industry standard, I found somewhere that would let me use it and teach me more about it. The catch was, it was in Portland, Oregon. So I took out a student loan, which I am still paying back to this day, and we loaded up the cats, all our stuff, and drove across the country, two days after 9/11. It was eerie. No planes in the sky and everyone was on their best behavior. No one had issues with anybody because we all had an enemy to focus on that wasn’t one of us.

We stayed in Portland for a cup of coffee before deciding several months later that there was no work in a post 9/11 economy, especially in Portland. So, even though I loved living there, it just wasn’t the right fit for me and I decided to change my home city for the third time in my life (and the third time in a year!) Her new step-dad, Doyle, flew up and helped us do the cross country drive again West to East through icy Utah and other frostbitten flat land mass until we crossed into the Natural State.

Her step-dad and Mom let us stay with them for a few months while I was looking for a job. I ended up getting one at a production house and she got one at Chili’s, again, ruling at being a server. She just has this natural charm she can turn on and the goodness exudes…just enough to get your tip money. My job went from bottom of the barrel to producing a show I co-created. Got to fly and visit literally every state in the country except Alaska and traveled with the live road show of an ESPN production tons of dates per year. Tons of dates where I’d get in late, and forget to call in and let her know I got their safe. Tons of dates where I would forget to communicate or would assume the wrong things.

Tons of dates where she was at home, all alone, and I was out having fun at casinos and riverboats and electronics shows, etc. You get the picture. She put up with a lot that I had to do at that job, and I never thanked her for it. I had the audacity to get angry at her for me not being considerate and letting her know I was o.k. A lot of you don’t know about this but we had a few miscarriages during this time. One was pretty far along and I was in Syracuse, N.Y. while she was having the worst day of her life at home, by herself. I will never forgive myself for that. I was lucky my friend Howard let me take his spot on the private plane home that day. Weeks later I got angry at her for not wanting to try again. I shouldn’t have. I regret it and if I could, I’d go back and agree with her and just be patient. Because we haven’t had the same dynamic since then. Because of me.

Eight years after starting that adventure with ESPN, it ended. Spent a month or two at home being humbled before Heifer International gave me a call and made me a manager. That meant a big pay bump and a fancy title. And it wasn’t tv! I only had to travel once! And everyone was supposed to leave at 5 on the dot, which was outstanding considering i’d rarely leave the ESPN job before 6 at the earliest, making our already limited home life short or just non-existent. I was a ghost that passed her in the hallway, seeing her asleep when I left and asleep when I got home a lot of the time.

But she stuck by me. Even though I was regularly grumpy and overwhelmed by handling such a huge account.

Fiscal years ended and began and my time with Heifer ended. Later, I was communications director at another non-profit, and it ended. Took a job doing the same thing I did at heifer for a for-profit businesses and realized because it wasn’t helping people and that my boss was a jerk that it just wasn’t a fit for me. So I quit and immediately got a job Promoting Channel 4 in Little Rock, AR. Soon this turned into promoting Channel 16, 38 and 42 along with 4. During months before and all the way into this time, Mandy woke up one day with swollen feet and numb, puffy hands. She said her torso felt like someone had tied an obscenely tight rope or belt around her ribcage. She started having trouble gripping things. She would get tired all the time. We went for multiple doctor visits, scans, spinal taps, MRIs, you name it. They did surgery on her hand for a mass that was pulling her tendons but the other issues still were there. They tested her for Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, you name it.

Then they saw it on a scan. A tiny speck in her neck. A sclerosis. Neurologist visits were scheduled, and the wait began.

So in between doctor visits, my excitement of being back in tv was palpable, but sure enough…the long hours began again. But they really ramped up once by boss left to work for Channel 7. I took the unofficial position of Interim Promotions Director and did logs (filling in the commercial holes for tv stations) for all four stations every single day. Which is a ton of minute paperwork where a screwup could cost you thousands a second. I also took on the majority of the promotion producing, and special projects and kept waiting for them to give me the job as I’d proven myself and have been in the business long enough to have earned it.

And they didn’t.

And suddenly the 60 hour weeks I’d worked for the seven months(!) they dangled the director carrot in front of me was all for nothing. I had wasted so much time I could have been with her, the girl that I had butterflies for and thought “oh god she’s married THIS SUUUUCKS” and I’d just been working on stupid video crap for a job I was never going to get in the first place. During this time I’d been frustrated, agitated, irritable and grumpy. Every slight I received at work carried weight with me and picked away at me and I was carrying around a lot of anger and resentment. She told me to get help, and I blew her off. She pleaded with me to get help, and I finally agreed to look into it. I procrastinated until she practically forced me into therapy, and what’dya know. It works. I’ve been much less angry, grumpy, etc. I’m a little more talkative now because of taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills. She’s been great at talking me through a ton of issues from my childhood and helping me to understand the other side of issues that I deal with professionally. She’s my sounding board, and I have no idea why she sticks around to deal with me and my mental bullshit. I am pretty sure it’s because she’s incredible and she loves me. I hope it’s because she can still see the good, non-acerbic, happy-go-lucky affable kid who loved everything and wanted to have fun and be energetic and…whatever else I was when I hadn’t been beaten down by almost reaching the top of my professions multiple times before being slapped back down to dumb-assville.

Towards the end of the channel 4 run, the doctors discovered more sclerosis, this time on her brain. She officially got the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. Our daily routine are pills to keep her nerves from hurting her. Pills to keep her energy level somewhat akin to a normal human and three times a week, I stick her with shots that hopefully freeze the damage that’s already been done in its tracks.

Not being able to do more to help her is the most helpless feeling there is. But there is literally nothing I can do but help make life easier for her. And I lose sight of that a lot because I’m selfish and self-centered and my default is to make life easy for myself.

Sidenote: As miserable deaths go, being pecked to death by ducks sounds like it should be right up there at the top. Little nibbles of who you are, crassly ripped from you, and then gone, forever.

I fear this is what I’ve done through my 16+ years of relationship faux pas. Through all the late nights. All the refusing to come to bed because “I’ll miss something” All the road trips with no phone calls and white lies and big lies and being frustrated and annoyed when she asks for simple favors by barking “WHAT?!” to her.

For all my hopeless anxiety and doldrums of deep depression where I couldn’t be bothered to care about what she was saying or wanted me to do. And most of all, for not taking her feelings into account about what had been our mutual quest of being the parents we wanted to be. and then this morning, the anniversary of the earthquake in Himachal Pradesh, India and the future anniversary of the birth of Amanda Joanna Beck — both in 1975, I did the worst possible thing.

I forgot to say “Happy Birthday” to her.

And I could tell that it really badly hurt her feelings.

And I’m sure she wonders why she chose to live with a surly, joke cracking, curmudgeon who does as much living in his own head as he ever has out in the real world. I hope it’s because she still loves me, because I know at this point, I’ve got to be getting old. I know I love her. But equally, I know that I’m terrible at showing it. I forget a lot of things because of a lot of reasons, but I have no time for excuses…I just fuck up.

She is a creator of beautiful things. A lover of animals. True and faithful to her folks, and a friend to anyone that takes the time to know her. I hate that this disease is taking some of the spontaneity that she enjoyed in her younger years.

Where, me, I’m a destroyer. I find the humor in the worst things and my brain always goes to the most terrible place. I find faults in minutiae instead of enjoying the big picture. I forget anything that doesn’t directly affect me and if my ego is hit, I strike back like a cobra.

I wish I was more like Mandy Barnette. She speaks her mind. She deals with things I would crumble under with poise and grace. She takes no bullshit and she is sweet and loving to those that deserve it. She is a wonderful animal mother to all our critters and even though she has issues with her hands, continues to make beautiful things every week with her crochet hooks and some string. It’s baffling.

I love her so much and I am so bad at showing it that the only way I can show the enormity of what we have is to show anyone and everyone that can see this the grand canyon between her inherent goodness and my impulsive black cloud and show that her staying with me, despite, y’know, *me*, reaches all the way across that chasm and brings me back home safe, because she wills it. Because she wants it to work. And because I do, too.

I don’t want to be the thing that pecks away at you, because I’m tired of being the Destroyer. I want to be on the side of light, of love, of forgiveness, of tolerance, of humor without being cruel and life without being judgmental.

I look at you and I love you for all you are. I look up to you because of all the love that you have.

The world is a better place for having had you in it these past 41 years, and I couldn’t imagine a world without you. And I’m never going to have to.

Happy birthday, gorgeous girl.

We’ve been through a lot, and there’s more where that came from.

Love,

M