March 4 2020

5:13 AM

Asleep at midnight. Awake at 4:00.

No dreams.

This is SOME routine I've fallen into, huh?

I'm grinding my teeth in my sleep now, so that's new, at least.

Otherwise, just repeat what I've said pretty much every morning since February 20, because nothing has changed: the fear, the loneliness, the sadness, the seemingly bottomless well of tears...

9:34 AM

Damn.

I knew it was just a matter of time before something like this showed up.

Before I met Doug, the last person ever to give me flowers on an opening night was my mother, who died in 1990. For Doug, it was the same.

And so, for the first year of our relationship, we gave each other flowers for every opening night, along with a schmoopy card. After that - because neither of us was big on flowers in general - we'd give a card with something more practical: a favorite chocolate, or a coffee mug relevant to the show, or a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels Honey to take off the pre-show jitters.

Doug was my biggest cheerleader and my number-one fan, and I was his. (Zach Parker once suggested that Doug and I should star in a stage version of Misery, which would've been hilarious.) Unless it was due to illness or a work commitment (or a competing show), we never missed each other's opening and closing nights. It was one of those rules we had. ❤️

I don't have that now - that greatest cheerleader. And I'll never have it again. Not that it matters much, because I don't know if I can ever set foot onstage again. But knowing that part of my life is dead too is just overwhelming... SO MANY losses because of losing him.

My entire life has been burned to the ground. There's not enough to rebuild. And even if I COULD, it's not going to be the life that we so painstakingly built, day after day, for over four years.

THAT was a life. It was a big, loud, hilarious, warm, loving, yet also small, quiet, and intimate life. It was OUR life. It was one into which we poured EVERYTHING.

Even if I COULD find the will to try and build a life without him (not REBUILD, because our life is nothing but ashes - there's no rebuilding from that), it could never be fulfilling. It would only be a pale imitation of a life, lived by a pale imitation of a whole woman forced to mark time against her will until she can be with her soulmate (a word, by the way, that used to make me roll my eyes until Doug came along).

Grace (grief counselor, remember?) said that Doug would want me to be happy. And she's not wrong. But how can I be happy with half a life? How can I be happy when the very things that made me happy are things I can't do anymore, because without him they just bring me pain?

How can I be happy without him, when he was my greatest happiness?

And THAT, my friends, is the question no one can answer.

4 Years Ago

See Your Memorieschevron-right

Kathleen Allen is feeling loved.

March 4, 2016 · Nashville · 

Beautiful flowers from my sweetie for opening night. Thank you so much, Doug. I'm rather fond of you, ya know. 💏

4:47 PM

Andrew (my son) started a new job on Monday. In Nashville. He lives in Lebanon. He drives a 2005 Ford Focus that's barely hanging on.

Yesterday, he couldn't get to work because all routes to Nashville were closed because 🌪️.

Today, his car's engine light came on. His car, on which he just spent a small fortune to get EVERYTHING fixed and make sure it's road worthy. So he took it straight to his mechanic and called his boss, who miraculously understood.

But I'm pretty sure there won't be much more understanding forthcoming, so we're now at CarMax in Cool Springs, where he's buying a 2017 Toyota Corolla with only 7,000 miles on it.

Do I want to be doing this today? No. I want to be curled up in a ball on my sofa, crying. But it's not as though I could say, "sorry, kid, you're on your own."

Yeah, I'm helping with the down payment, but he got approved for the loan all by himself.

Yes, I'm a proud mama. Doug would've been proud of him too. 

9:28 PM

Since Andrew hadn't eaten when we left to head down to Cool Springs, we stopped at Jim & Nick's Barbecue, where I ate half a pulled chicken sandwich, about three baked beans, and two little cheddar corn muffins.

That was at about 2:15, and it's all still sitting in my stomach like a rock. My twisted mind hears Sir David Attenborough narrating: "Here we see the North American Widow in her natural habitat. She feeds in tiny amounts, only once every other day, in between bouts of uncontrollable tears."

Missy pointed out today that Andrew is her stepbrother, which made me realize that Olivia is his niece and Andrew and William are his nephews: both Olivia and Andrew are older than my Andrew. As I told Missy, this family tree is JACKED, yo.

In this evening's edition of The Grief Chronicles, another example of how missing Doug has fundamentally changed how I think about life and death: saw an article about a local couple, married more than 50 years, who died together in the tornado Tuesday morning. A NORMAL person would read that and think, "that's fucking TRAGIC." MY first thought: HOW LUCKY that they went together, so neither of them has to feel what I'm feeling right now. (Yep, that's awful, but I promised to share the whole truth when I write about what I'm going through, even if it casts me in a bad light.)

I joined a widow's support group on Facebook, but I'm not sure I should stay in it: every post is a trigger, but the ones that are REALLY getting to me are the women whose husbands have been dead for two years and they're still fighting to get out of bed in the morning, and crying alone in their beds every night.

I realize that I said, in my eulogy, that I WANT to feel this pain, because it's proof of how very much I love my husband (also, had to refer to him as my late husband for the first time today, and once again - I couldn't breathe). I still feel that way.

But this kind of grief CAN'T be sustainable. How are these women carrying on, when they're still as raw two years later as I am right now? I can't do it. I don't want to.

I held it together most of the day today, save for a couple of times when I had to step outside and let a few tears go.

But then I made the mistake of listening to NPR on my way home. (Home 🙄; that's rich, isn't it? This place hasn't been a home since Doug walked out of it for the last time.)

Listening to NPR a mistake, you ask? Oh, yes. You see, I'm avoiding music, because either sad songs or love songs would be problematic. I did not expect, however, that NPR would use Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You into the Dark" as background music for a story.

The lyrics, if you're unfamiliar:
Love of mine, someday you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark

No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark

If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied,
Illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs
If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks,
Then I'll follow you into the dark...

...You and me, we've seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary, and the soles of your shoes
are all worn down,
the time for sleep is now
but it's nothing to cry about
'cause we'll hold each other soon in the blackest of rooms

Yeah, it's a gut punch of a song. And I FEEL it. I mean, I always did, in the abstract. But now I REALLY FEEL it: why am I still stuck here instead of holding him for eternity? If his place is with me (and it is), then isn't MY place with him?

"Soon" can't be soon enough.

Several people have suggested that I'm still here because I have a purpose. Well, for one thing, so did Doug, but HE'S gone. And if I DID have a purpose, it was to love him. Every failed relationship, every decision I've made, every twist and turn in my life led us to each other. Loving Doug - LEARNING how to love so that I could - THAT was my purpose. And I've fulfilled it.

And now, I want to follow him into the dark. But I can't. And it's a wound that can never heal.