CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT:
Interview with Ann Matzke

Rappahannock Review Nonfiction Editors: “What Losing the 1979 World Series Taught Me About Life and Death” opens with the setting, drawing an immediate connection between the World Series and the hospital just based on time and geographical closeness; was there anything else that made you decide to connect the two seemingly unrelated places? A personal love of sports, or maybe some other thematic connection you noticed?

AM: My interest in baseball began when I was young. My grandfather played on a semipro baseball team as a catcher. I grew up hearing his stories and about the trips he made to watch games in the professional leagues. When I moved to Baltimore, the city’s enthusiasm made it easy to feel a connection to the Orioles. Along with the popular song We Are Family, as well as the connection growing between co-workers on the unit. 

Even on those days when life and work were extremely difficult, we all knew sometimes you win and sometimes you lose; life isn’t always fair in medicine. I’ve spent years thinking about this piece. When I started writing, it just felt like everything fell into place—being part of a team, the difficult situations we faced, and giving it our best effort while trying to enjoy life in the moment.  

RR: The narrative centers around the connection between the narrator and Baby Bird, and Baby Bird’s death marks the end of the story, yet overall the piece ends with a positive message. What made you choose to juxtapose the death of an infant with the positive message of teamwork and optimism? 

AM: Unfortunately, in medicine winning and losing is often a daily occurrence. In Baby Bird’s situation we were all hoping to find something that might extend her life. For me, this was my first brush with death, and it proved to be a significant learning experience.  

I chose to end the essay on a positive note because I witnessed how the players and the city faced the defeat; losing is never easy. As much as we all wanted the Orioles to win the series, it didn’t happen. As much as I wanted Baby Bird to live longer, it didn’t happen. I learned very early in my career you have to deal with losses, grieve, find the positive, and go on because someone, a patient, parent, co-worker is depending on you.  

RR: When writing this piece, did you find it difficult to accurately capture the feeling of the infant and toddler unit? What was the thought process of choosing language that felt right?

AM: I think because my rotation on the Infant and Toddler Unit was at the beginning of my internship it remains very vivid in my memory. Also, over the years I’ve worked with healthy and sick infants and toddlers which made it easy to use the age-related language in writing this piece.  

RR: Have you approached similar topics in your writing before, and if so, how have those works influenced this piece?

AM: In the last year, I’ve published two medically related poems. One in HEAL published at Florida State University, College of Medicine and another in Intima: Journal of Narrative Medicine. This particular memory has always weighed heavy on my heart. I knew I wanted to write about it someday. This fall as the World Series was playing out my feelings, emotions, perspective of this situation finally found its way to the page. 

RR: What would you say are the nonfiction pieces that inspire you the most?

AM: Years ago, in a poetry class I read a book of poetry by Shelly Wagner, The Andrew Poems. Shelly’s son had died, and it was a collection of her poems about a mother’s grief. I remember feeling as if I was sitting in the front seat of a large roller coaster as I plunged into reading. Often pinned to my chair as I experienced her gut-wrenching emotions sparsely placed on each page, sharing her experience of his death. Shelly’s slim book of powerful poems gave me perspective, helping me to be a better health care provider, and a writer to understand life and death from a deeply maternal state. Over the years, I’ve thought about Baby Bird’s mother, her loss and I’ve wondered about how her life moved on.