American Wife (30 page)

Or maybe he said that. Someone started a countdown, and Bill O'Reilly snapped into Bill O'Reilly mode, talking to the camera and introducing me.

Go, girl!

He asked about the book, about guns, about Chris's murder. I answered. He kept asking. I kept answering.

He was very kind and accommodating. We talked about history, guns, and Jesse. I'd like to say that it got easier as I went, but the truth is, I don't remember if it did. I don't remember much of anything, except that I was very glad when it was done.

I was on
Fox & Friends,
MSNBC, Glenn Beck's show, Anderson Cooper's show—so many that I can't remember. So much of media is cold, but the feelings I got from nearly every interviewer were warm and genuine. They were truly sorry for the tragedy of Chris's death, and I felt that many wanted to do as much for all veterans as I do.

Then, just as I was starting to get used to the routine, it was over. The book was on its own.

It was an instant bestseller, a tribute to Chris and the people around the country who'd decided to support him.

FILM THERAPY

People say that work can be therapy. In the case of the movie, I think it literally was.

Jason Hall and I stayed in very close contact as he revised the screenplay. I don't know how many hundreds of hours we spent talking. He did it because he wanted to get the script right, but also because I was grieving and he wanted to comfort me. He became a friend and almost a counselor as we discussed not only Chris's life but different aspects of loss and grief. I appreciated not only his efforts, but what all of those hours of work must have meant for his wife Elisha.

There were a lot of times when I choked up and couldn't talk. At those moments he turned from writer to friend, telling me it was okay to let my emotions out.

I told him about my niece's baptism, about how horrible it would have been to let go.

“Why?” he asked.

“It would have caused a scene.”

“So?”

“People would have looked at me like I was a poor widow. They would have been pitying me. I don't want that.”

“It's real,” he insisted. “It's raw. No one's going to judge you on that.”

“But—”

“You better let it out,” he said. “Or you'll end up being a bitter, raw old woman.”

I knew the kind of woman he was talking about. There's a difference between a grandmother whose life and love shine through the wrinkles on her face and the unpleasant old woman who wears a scowl as a scar of her battles against the world and herself.

“You gotta let it out,” said Jason. “Let it out.”

He was right, but I was still afraid. More and more, I feared falling into a deep depression. As the grief stubbornly remained with me, I began dreading the crevices I knew were ahead.

“Let yourself go,” urged Jason. But I was too afraid to do that. And so what I feared became more and more a reality.

I thought releasing my emotions would mean I'd let go of Chris as well. As long as I hurt, I had proof he was still there.

If I allowed my tears to flow and my body to heave, surely there would come a time when they would be exhausted. I would not have enough tears to fill a lake or green all of Texas, but if I did—if I let myself loose and simply cried for hours and days and weeks—then there would eventually be an end. There would be a finish to the physical expression of my grief, if only because of exhaustion.

And if my crying was done, then my memory would be over. My love would be gone. I would lose my husband for good.

If all I had of him was grief, then so be it—I could at least hold on to that.

SPIELBERG AND CLINT

With the script nearly done, the studio and Bradley Cooper's production company looked for a director. They didn't want just any director, and that summer they announced they were moving ahead with a big one: Steven Spielberg.

Wooo-hooo!
I thought when I heard.

Saving Private Ryan
was one of Chris's favorite movies, and he loved
Band of Brothers
. He would have been honored at the idea of Spielberg making this one.

Spielberg was interested in seeing some of our home videos and photographs so the designers and director could get an idea of how things should look.

One of the people in charge of props told me: “It's not my job necessarily to make things look exactly as they were in real life. But I want [the movie] to look so authentic that when you see it, you'll think it's part of your own personal history. It will be your life to hold onto.”

That attention to detail—and that care and dedication—moved me, and I did everything I could to help them. Still, I didn't want to just put my memories in the mail or FedEx. To put me at ease, the studio offered to use a team of couriers so that the material would be in someone's hands each step of the way.

They sent a driver out one day. He was a big, hulking fellow who filled Chris's office the way Chris would have.

“I just have a few more things to pack up,” I told him. “If you could just wait a second.”

“Sure.”

Bubba came in, still wearing his jammies. “Hey,” he said to the guy. “You play darts?”

“Uh—”

By now Bubba was so used to people dropping by and playing with him that he didn't even need to ask who they were.

He'd also become pretty good at darts.

I wrapped up quickly, sparing the poor fellow the humiliation of losing to a kid whose voice wouldn't change for several more years.

Some things were just too difficult to do.

Bradley Cooper wanted to know more about Chris, and I decided to send him some of the emails I'd saved while he was deployed. I sat down and read the first one, and started to cry.

This is silly.

I tried a few times, but couldn't go on.

A few days later, I tried again.

Once more, I had to stop.

I sent them to Bradley and to Sienna Miller without reading the rest.

Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out with Spielberg, and he ended up detaching himself from the project that August. But his replacement may have been even better, at least from Chris's point of view: Clint Eastwood.

I couldn't help but think back to the conversation Chris and I had had about Eastwood possibly directing.

“Still doing your magic, huh, babe?” I said the day I found out, glancing toward heaven.

One of the things I'd always admired about Clint Eastwood as a director was his ability to tap deep undercurrents of meaning in his films. His movies don't show and tell everything in an obvious manner; they get their message across in subtle ways, but make you feel it.

From practically the moment the movie was announced, people asked me whether I was excited. The truth is, I wasn't.

I was scared.

I was the person left to make sure it was right, and it was up to me to make sure that Chris was represented accurately, even though that was really out of my hands.

I wanted so much for the movie to show
all
of Chris, not just the part of him that had to go to war. Certainly his service to our country was his life's calling. But I wanted—want—people to understand who he was, the whole Chris: father, husband, friend, as well as warrior.

How do you take someone's whole life and shrink it into a couple of hours? I don't think you can.

As good as I felt about the efforts Jason was making, and what Bradley and the studio were doing to get things right, I began to feel apprehensive. What if they didn't get it right? What if the movie made Chris out to be arrogant? Or simply missed him entirely?

I couldn't express my doubts to the movie people. They were trying too hard. But the more I kept them in, the bigger they grew.

My computer is tucked into an armoire, whose doors fold out to reveal the desk. Before Chris died, I'd covered the inside with photos, mostly of him and the kids.

I didn't realize at first, but the photos pounded my heart every time I worked. The happy memories they represented were shards of fractured steel, perforating my soul.

Eventually I realized I had to take them down. I cried as I did. Then I put them back, and cried some more.

An hour later, I took them down again. This time I put them into a drawer, where at least I could take my pain in doses.

After Chris died, the National Rifle Association decided that they wanted to honor him at the NRA national convention. So they called and asked me to attend and represent him.

“I don't want to just stand there and get an award,” I told them. “I feel as if I have to contribute something.”

They agreed—I think reluctantly. Maybe they were worried that, since my husband had been shot, I would be anti-gun. On the contrary, I didn't blame the weapon; I blamed the man who did the killing. And maybe saying that publicly was part of the reason I wanted to speak.

It is an honor to be with you today. America needs people like you who are willing to stand up and fight for part of what makes America great. In the next few minutes, I want to share my personal perspective of what you are doing when you expend time and energy to protect our freedoms—not just those protected by the Second Amendment, but all of them.

I'm sure you know the reason I'm here speaking to you today, instead of my husband, Chris Kyle. I challenge anyone to tell me there isn't evil in this world. From the days of Cain and Abel, we know all too well, there will always be evil.

But that evil shouldn't take away our freedoms. In fact, the only way to defeat evil is by taking advantage of those freedoms. And so, let me talk about some sides of Chris that maybe you don't know, and use his experiences to highlight why our freedoms—and the responsibility to do good that comes with them—are so important.

Giving the speech helped convince me that I could honor Chris's memory by taking the stage. And that led to another idea: if people were willing to listen to me, they might be willing to support the charity as well. The two could go together.

Instead of simply organizing the charity, I could work for it as well. That would give me a meaningful though unpaid job, and give it a way to continue growing. It was a way of paying it forward.

I certainly believed in the message; the only question was whether I could believe in myself.

I don't like to be the center of attention, which may be an odd quality for someone who is interested in public speaking. But going onstage felt different. There, I wasn't the focus; the focus was on the message—how Chris changed my life, how ideas like “paying blessings forward” and the “ripple effect of kindness” can make all of society better.

The idea was still tentative—but then again, so was everything in my life.

THE FROG AT DISNEY WORLD

Chris and I had purchased a flexible time-share around the time Bubba was born, hoping that we would have a family vacation tradition. It had never gotten the kind of use we wanted—whose does?—but when it was used, by us and other family members, it did provide a lot of fun.

In the year after Chris died, a friend organized a trip for the kids and me to use the time-share at Disney World in Florida. I felt exceptionally lonely the night we arrived in our rental car, exhausted from our flight. Getting our suitcases out, I mentioned something along the lines of “I wish we had Dad here.”

“Me, too,” said both of the kids.

“But he's still with us,” I told them, forcing myself to sound as optimistic as possible. “He's always here.”

It's one thing to say that and another to feel it, and as we walked toward the building I didn't feel that way at all. We went upstairs—our apartment was on the second floor—and went to the door.

A tiny frog was sitting on the door handle.

A frog, really? Talk about strange.

Anyone who knows the history of the SEALs will realize they trace their history to World War II combat divers: “frogmen” specially trained to infiltrate and scout enemy beaches before invasions (among other duties). They're very proud of that heritage, and they still occasionally refer to themselves as frogmen or frogs. SEALs often feature frogs in various tattoos and other art related to the brotherhood. As a matter of fact, Chris had a frog skeleton tattoo as a tribute to fallen SEALs. (The term
frogman
is thought to derive from the gear combat divers wore, as well as their ability to work both on land and at sea.)

But for some reason, I didn't make the connection. I was just consumed by the weirdness—who finds a frog, even a tiny one, on a door handle?

The kids gathered round. Call me squeamish, but I didn't want to touch it.

“Get it off, Bubba!” I said.

“No way.”

We hunted around and found a little tree branch on the grounds. I held it up to the doorknob, hoping it would hop on. It was reluctant at first, but finally it toddled over to the outside of the door jam. I left it to do whatever frogs do in the middle of the night. Inside the apartment, we got settled. I took out my cell phone and called my mom to say we'd arrived safely.

“There was one strange thing,” I told her. “There was a frog on the door handle when we arrived.”

“A . . . frog?”

“Yes, it's like a jungle down here, so hot and humid.”

“A frog?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don't think there's anything interesting about that?”

“Oh my God,” I said, suddenly realizing the connection.

I know, I know: just a bizarre coincidence.

Probably.

I did sleep really well that night.

The next morning, I woke up before the kids and went into the living room. I could have sworn Chris was sitting on the couch waiting for me when I came out.

I can't keep seeing you everywhere.

Maybe I'm crazy.

I'm sorry. It's too painful.