1989

This one gets heavy.

Hi Son,

The last couple of days have had Taylor Swift top of mind, mainly because this dipshit of a president decides to attempt to degrade her for speaking out against him. This has had me remembering how she did play a vital role for me in the toughest time of my life, and your mother’s. Your mom was a law student at Marquette in her second year. It took a lot of her time away from us so she could keep up with classes. I completely understood. She fought her way into Marquette by persisting on applying and got into the program starting in August 2016. Most nights she would be in our office/third bedroom/cat litter box room working and studying. During the first semester of her second year at Marquette Law, I noticed she was listening to a lot of Taylor Swift. Either she had on headphones or would just let it go out of the speakers. I never knew until that time that she really liked Taylor’s music. She wasn’t at the level of a Swiftie, but she still has a handful of songs she knows all of the words to. Just to go off of a quick tangent one thing she would do while I was at work, is send me pictures of one of the cats laying on the desk to drive me nuts. I was the disciplinarian of Uriah, Sam and Lulu and she would mess with me when I wasn’t home.

The second semester of year two at Marquette began on January 16, 2018, the day after Martin Luther King. On MLK Day, we were expecting a dishwater to arrive, and be installed the same day. Your mom called me at work and said the courier was only dropping off and not installing the dishwasher. So I told her to take it back, because we made an arrangement with Home Depot to not have an uninstalled dishwasher sitting around in our condo for days until install. That was the last conversion I had with her that day. She also asked me during the phone call if I was coming home that night. I wasn’t sure given the weather forecast was for several inches of snow. At this time, we lived in Milwaukee and I commuted to Madison every day. If the weather looked like it was going to snow in the evening or next morning I would stay at my boss’s house so I wouldn’t miss work or drive home in shitty weather. After I told her that I wasn’t sure if I was staying in Madison or not, she asked me to come home. There was some preparation to do for her first day of the second semester. I told her I would. It starting snowing in the early afternoon at a pretty decent pace. This wasn’t going to be an easy drive home, but I was determined to make it there.

I started making my way and I tried to call to let her know I was on my way. I had to leave a voicemail. My boss texted me that it was okay if I wanted to change my mind and stay in Madison, I ignored it. It took me about 2 hours to get home, but I honestly don’t mind driving in snow. Hell, I would like to think I’ve gotten used to it living is Wisconsin for several years. I got home and went upstairs to our condo on the third floor. I opened the door and the lights were off for the most part. I thought maybe she was in the office studying so I checked there. She wasn’t. I went back to the front door and heard her snoring in the bedroom. For this, I’m not going to go into detail. It just brings back too much for me. I had to call an ambulance. They came and took us a mile down the road to Columbia Saint Mary’s ER.

The doctors determined that your mother had a stroke. She was stable, but unable to talk or even open her eyes and feeling/ability on the right side of her body was gone. I can’t express how floored I was after hearing the diagnosis. The doctors showed me the CT scan and the swelling occurring in her head. I’ve never been more scared in my life and I hope I never will be again after that. She was kept overnight and I slept at her bedside. After a couple of nights at Columbia Saint Mary’s, she was transferred about 15 minutes away to Froedtert Hospital & MCW. She needed surgery, but there was not a neurosurgeon experienced in carrying out the procedure she needed. I had to get in my car and drive over to the next hospital. When I got in the car I debated with myself whether to listen to anything on the way or not. I remembered that she was listening to Taylor Swift, so I decided to find some of her work to put on. What I played on the drive over was Taylor’s album “1989.”

I can’t go into the track-by-track given the experience I had gone through. It was very helpful. I listened to the first four tracks: “Welcome To New York”, “Blank Space”, “Style” and “Out of the Woods.” I became emotional, it was impossible to hold back. The music was helpful. It made me try to place myself in the office of our condo listening to it while she studied. The entire album I will say is excellent. We have a copy on vinyl and I want you to hear it sometime. It’s truly a staple of her catalog and is wonderful from start-to-finish. This would start a two-month journey for your mother to rehab to get her well enough to come home. If you remember, I mentioned I had to go up to the third floor to get to our condo. There was no elevator. If she was going to come home she was going to have to get up the stairs. Also, we did not have a parking lot or any assigned parking for our building. We parked on the street and sometimes had to walk a block or two from the car to the front of the building. What I will say is that your mom gained a significant amount of herself mentally and physically to be able to walk from the car to the building and up three flights of stairs. It was extremely challenging, but astonishing to she her do it.

I kept listening to 1989 during those two months. I spent every night with her at the hospital, while your grandmother looked after our condo and the cats. It really got me through the difficult time. Especially because your mother had a lot to get back in terms of memory and personality. 1989 was the closest thing I could cling to, to try to keep the memory of who she is while she rehabbed. There’s one more thing I want to mention about Taylor Swift. In 2023, Taylor was on tour and was going to come through Kansas City that summer. Your mom had made plans to go to that show with her best friend. Unfortunately, she would not be able to go to the show. She lost her best friend at the end of 2022. It was devastating. Your mom and close with her and the family. In 2023, she conceived you around Easter time. We both agreed to naming you after her, by using her last name. That’s the origin of your first name. Life has been difficult since January 2018 in so many ways. Everyone goes through struggle and trauma. Everyone deals with struggle and trauma in their own way. There is no universal method to mourn and recover, it’s different for every single person. Please respect that. Don’t ever tell someone to just “move on” or “get past it.” Be there for them. Listen to them. Try to help them feel understood. That’s the toughest part about grief for me, is feeling misunderstood. I can’t speak for others on what is the toughest part of grief, but please allow those who are to go about it on their own path.

Love,

Dad