When Matt Logelin and his wife, Liz, welcomed their first child on March 24, 2008 — seven weeks early — he shared the news on his blog. “Madeline decided to make her first appearance today,” the giddy dad wrote in a post filled with photos of the sleepy newborn and mom. Three days later, Logelin made another announcement: Liz had died at the age of 30.
In a tragic turn of events, the late Disney executive — who had a C-section— suffered a pulmonary embolism as she was walking down the hall to the NICU to visit her daughter. “Doctors and nurses rushed to help her. But nothing could be done to bring her back,” Logelin wrote. “No one to blame. S – – tty luck and a pulmonary embolism are what led us to the saddest, most horrific moment of my life.”
To ward off loneliness, the grieving widower continued to update his online journal. One post read: “Everyday I have to look out the picture window in the front of my house to see her car, parked in her spot. Like she may just be sitting out there, like she did so often, finishing up one of her post-work calls to Chandra. I stare out that window way too much. I have to see her black, elastic pony-tail holders on every door knob in the house. I don’t know why she chose to put them there, but there they remain.”
Logelin went on to pen the 2011 New York Times bestseller Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love about his experiences raising a daughter as a single parent. Now, eight years after Liz’s death, Channing Tatum is set to executive-produce — and possibly star in — an adaptation of Logelin’s tearjerker memoir.
“I’d of course be beyond flattered if the movie ever gets made and if he’d even consider taking on the role of me,” Logelin, 38, tells Us Weekly. “We haven’t met yet, but if this moves forward, I’m hoping that we’ll be hanging out a lot, and if we do, I’m sure we’ll become fast friends.”
What the project manager for Yellow Pages would prefer to talk about, though, is Maddy, who just celebrated her eighth birthday on March 24. “I see so much of Liz in Maddy,” he gushes to Us. “Beyond the obvious physical resemblances, Maddy is thoughtful, caring and incredibly in tune with the emotions of those around her, just like her mom was. She’s also strong, confident and unwilling to be treated differently simply because she’s a little girl.”
Logelin — who is in a long-term relationship with Bob’s Burgers writer Lizzie Molyneux — also opened up about the challenges he faced as a single parent. “It’s hard not having someone to hold your baby when you need to clean vomit from your clothes, but for me, it was even harder to not have someone to share Maddy’s first word, or someone to knowingly squeeze my hand as I cried watching her sing all the lines in her first school performance.”
Though Logelin no longer updates his blog — “I no longer enjoyed writing it” — he has just authored a hilarious children’s book called Be Glad Your Dad… (Is Not an Octopus!). “Both my co-author, Sara Jensen, and I relied heavily on our children to help us with this book,” he says. “As Maddy gets older, I keep waiting for that moment that all parents dread, what I like to call the ‘I hate you!’ moment. She hasn’t actually said those words yet, but I’m pretty sure I’ve felt her say them with her eyes. This book is sort of a response to that moment, and should serve as a funny reminder to all children that their dad could be way worse than he actually is.”
Be Glad Your Dad… (Is Not an Octopus!) hits shelves on May 3. It is published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers.
Hear Logelin and Maddy tell their story in the video above.
