Letter from LA

Signs of Life: Widowed with a child at 25, my sister-in-law survived throughstrong family ties

Natalie Taylor and son, Kai Taylor
Photo by Brett Mountain
Josh and Natalie Taylor
Natalie with her newborn, Kai Taylor

I joke that I married my husband for his family. They’re remarkable characters as illustrated in my sister-in-law Natalie Taylor's new memoir Signs of Life (Broadway Books, $24). Natalie was a 24-year-old high school English teacher and expecting her first child when her husband passed away. Her memoir is an inspiring, honest, and laugh out loud funny account of her nearly simultaneous crash-courses in widowhood and motherhood.

It takes a village to raise a child. Natalie assembles a stellar cast. Her parents, siblings, in-laws, and friends help her cope and raise her son. This is how I was inducted into that village before Natalie knew she'd need one.

I met a boy in a bar in L.A. in May. He took me to meet his family in Michigan in June. Dad/Vito is a burly man with a thick mustache (to hide hockey scars) and punishing bear hugs. Mom/Lynn is a natural beauty with enthusiasm to spare, who keeps her figure by mowing the lawn while rocking out to her iPod.They were college sweethearts, and after raising four kids, they're still crazy for each other.

The moment I first stepped into their home, I thought: So, this is what Dorothy was prattling on about! Fridge photos were proof of all the happy moments: Homecoming dances, college graduations, his sister Natalie and brother-in-law Josh dancing at their wedding the December before. It was clear this was a magic family. I wanted to be adopted immediately. A month later, we were engaged.

Over the next year, we planned our wedding. I asked my husband's three sisters to be my bridesmaids. We chose baby-bump friendly empire-waist bridesmaid dresses as Natalie, the middle sister, was expecting her first child. Adam asked his sisters' husbands to be his co-best men. The ceremony would be a family affair on top of Aspen Mountain.

And then, our lives came to a halt. Josh fell and hit his head while carveboarding (a modified skateboard used to practice snowboarding and surfing). He was pronounced dead at age 27 on Father’s Day with a baby boy on the way. With six weeks until our wedding, my new family was broken.

Natalie addressed over a thousand people at Josh's memorial. She stood in a black maternity dress and read the following:

…My older brother Adam is getting married this July. A few months ago Adam and his fiancée Ellie created a website featuring all of the wedding party with small, concise biographies. Josh’s biography reads as follows:

QUESTION: If Superman and the Flash raced to the end of the Universe, who would win? ANSWER: Josh Taylor. Yes, the groom’s Brother from Another Mother is a superhero. If Lance Armstrong, Indiana Jones, Jack Bauer, Emeril, and the cast of Jackass had a baby—a blond barrel-chested baby who was addicted to Moomer’s ice cream—it would be Josh or Diz (or “Dizzle” if you’re addressing him formally).

Anytime our wedding came up, all I could think was who wants to toast to love and eat cake? Happily ever after? What a joke.

I thought maybe we should postpone the wedding. I didn’t have cold feet. I felt the opposite of cold feet. Natalie mentioned building a family compound. That wasn't radical enough for me. I wanted to build a commune where we would not only live together, but where I could monitor where everyone was at all times. The Sztykiel's basement would do. Walls could be padded. All risk would be averted. Not even driving would be allowed.

But then, one evening, I logged onto our wedding website for the first time since the accident. There was one single new comment on the guest page. From Josh. He had posted it just days before he passed. For the first time, I read about how he couldn't wait for our wedding. He wrote how he planned to rent a bike to screech down the mountain after the ceremony. He signed the post “Dizzle.” Josh believed in love and family and living big. He did not believe in padded walls and safety nets.

The note was his blessing. It was a sign.

Six weeks later, I married the Sztykiels on top of a mountain. I was just beginning my marriage and Natalie was seven months pregnant and a widow. She wore her plum chiffon bridesmaid dress, gripped a bouquet of poppies, and forced herself to smile in the wedding portraits. She did it for us. You could feel our family's raw love for one another. I took a vow that I would cherish these people as dearly as Josh had.

Over the next year, Natalie kept a journal as a means of dealing with her grief. Her memoir Signs of Life emerged from these entries.It overflows with wonderful characters from literature, pop culture, and the suburbs of Detroit. It’s a window into the world of my magic family and a testament to their resilience. You will laugh and cry with them and wish they were your family too.

It's true: I totally married my husband for his family.

You can follow former Houstonian Ellie Knaus' adventures at E llieinLA.com.

See the video about the book, SIgns of Life, which is available at Amazon and bookstores.

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Movie Review

Denzel Washington brings new spectacle to the Colosseum in Gladiator II

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II.

There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.

The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).

Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.

Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.

Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.

The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.

Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.

Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.

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Gladiator II opens in theaters on November 22.

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