Episode 04:  Love and Loss

[Intro music theme: Carnival]

Carolynn:  HI, this is Carolynn with Episode Four of my Podcast. I call it: Love and Loss. Much of what you will hear in this episode is taken from my original cassette tapes from 1995 so the quality is music only to the ears of those of you who really want to hear the story.

[Sound effect, ding, ding]

Carolynn: In the last episode you learned about Dave’s mom dying on his birthday-- just one day after I had seen her for the first time in 30 years at Dave’s family home in Phoenix. I was in town for the Thanksgiving holiday and hoping to sneak in an assignation with Dave while I was there. Dave was in town to share his birthday and Thanksgiving, which fell on the same day, with his Mom and Dad. At the last minute, his wife decided to come along after all, leaving her kids at home.  Plans for Dave and I to see each other were scrapped.

Carolynn:  Dave’s mom died the day after I arrived. Here is what I wrote in my diary about Dave’s call that day—Thanksgiving, Tuesday, November 22, 1994:

“When you called Tuesday and told me your mother had died I wouldn’t have believed it except for your voice. The minute I heard you, I knew something was terribly wrong. I felt panic because I couldn’t be there for you and hold you and relieve some of your grief. When I used to say I wanted to share all of life’s special and important moments and events with you, it wasn’t just the happy ones I was referring to. I couldn’t believe, as I sat down with the phone still to my ear and with tears spilling down my cheeks, that the smiling woman I had seen the day before was gone. Her last words to me were, “I’ll see you again.”  I told her I would be back in February. I never got a chance to tell her that I loved her that day.  I’ll always remember her standing at the door waving goodbye as I drove away.”

[First half Barbershop tag: Lonely Shade of Blue]

[Continuing in my diary I wrote]

I didn’t eat or sleep until Wednesday when Dave called again. I mostly cried. Admittedly, I was afraid this trauma would bring him closer to his wife and he would decide to stay in his marriage. I know it was selfish but that was the first thought that came to me.  But his first words to me when he called were, “I love you.”

[REPEAT Barbershop clip: Just a Lonely Shade of Blue]

Carolynn: My mom and I went to the viewing at the funeral home in Phoenix—one that would become all too familiar to me.  It was the same place that John McCaine would have his funeral services later and where I would attend two more funerals. In my diary I wrote:”

It was so strange to come to the viewing today. It was almost like there was another person in my place and I was just along for the ride. When Dave first walked out to greet Mom and me, he was smiling and so I did too. Even though this was a somber occasion, we couldn’t help it. I was so glad to see him. I had been within 20 miles of him for five days and hadn’t been able to see him once. I had not been able to talk to him and comfort him about his mom. The only three phone calls I had had from him since arriving had been brief and hushed and sad. But now here we were, and instead of feeling desire—as I expected I would—I felt calm and peaceful. It was not hard to pretend to be old friends because that’s how I felt”.

Carolynn:   Dave, wearing a bulky brown, knit sweater, came to greet me and immediately hugged me as I timidly entered the memorial viewing room.  When I started to step back from his embrace, I noticed my charm bracelet was snagged on his sweater and I couldn’t back up. I quietly whispered to him, “I’m stuck on you.” With his witty sense of humor, and quick wit, that I would grow to love, he smiled, looked into my blue eyes and said, “It wouldn’t be the first time.” Even in his grief he wanted to make everyone else feel comfortable. I walked over to his brother, Bill, and we talked for a few minutes. I hadn’t seen him either for over 3 decades either. My mom was sitting on the sagging sofa across the room talking to Dave’s wife. A few minutes later, his wife crossed the room when she saw Dave and me talking.  I hadn’t told Mom what to say about us so, I was a little worried what she might have revealed.  Dave introduced us and told his wife I was a friend from college. She knew that we had once been engaged. I don’t know how she knew that; Dave must have told her. I mentioned that I was in town from Detroit to spend Thanksgiving with my family which Mom had apparently already told her. I didn’t feel uncomfortable talking to her. Why didn’t I feel guilty?

I guess because I loved Dave more than I lusted for him. It didn’t seem like we were having an affair, it just seemed like we were family—he was just a loved one I had not seen in a long time.  Although Dave was grievously sad, he was obviously pleased that I was there. Every once in a while I saw a twinkle in his eyes and detected a hidden message in some of his words. I think he was having a harder time than I was acting like we were just friends. I later recorded for my diary:

[Fade in and out music clip: May You Never Know…]

“After his wife drove back to California the next day, Dave called and asked me if I could stay a few more days. So, I arranged to stay over—remain in Phoenix-- by phoning my boss and saying that I had Jury Duty, which I actually had but not until the following week. I felt Dave needed me. How could I refuse?”

Carolynn:  We relished the time we had together despite the sadness surrounding our reunion.  Every moment seemed like a dream. You would think we had run out of things to say, over the last three months or so, but we had 30 years of living to explore.  Stories tumbled out like building blocks and we shared them in crazy non chronological order trying to build on the foundation of our new upside down lives. A day later, I went with Dave to pick up his mom’s ashes. He was so despondent. I suggested we sing something, after all we met in college choir, and we both were singers. He said his mom loved the song from The Sound of Music, “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things,” so we sang that. When we couldn’t remember the words, we just made them up. Dave was very clever at spontaneous quips and we both had fun and laughed. Hearing music often cements an event in your memory and this one did for me.  Singing this happy tune helped the medicine of loss go down.

Carolynn:  I returned to Michigan; the flight tearing my heart away from the place I really wanted to be.  A day later, as Dave prepared to return to California, his dad has a heart attack. Dave called me with the news and once again I heard a voice which only sadness and despair could induce. I asked if he needed me, if he wanted me to come back, even though I had just gotten home! He said yes. So, I boarded a flight the next day. I stayed with him to keep him company when he wasn’t visiting his Dad in the hospital. His brother had returned to England which left him as the sole caregiver. I made sure Dave ate, and gave him lots of hugs.  I cleaned out the refrigerator and tried to prepare the house for his dad’s homecoming. We camped out on the living room floor with a quilt because neither of us wanted to sleep in his dad’s bed or in Dave’s childhood room. This was the first time we had spent the night together. “That night, I was introduced to Dave’s snoring,” I wrote that in my diary.

Carolynn:  The next day, returning to the house after another long day at the hospital, I overheard Dave on the phone with his wife. She was apparently angry about a lot of things from what I could hear of the conversation.  I was not one of them--at least not yet.  He was so calm and reasonable. I thought, if this is the worst he ever gets, then it’s going to be fine when we are together because I couldn’t imagine doing anything to hurt this kind, gentle man; especially now when he was grieving.  She bluntly said during this call, “oh, and by the way, Sophie died.” He was devastated. Sophie was his beloved golden retriever and the only one he believed who would miss him when he left.  Now he didn’t see any reason to stay, he said, holding his head in his hands and looking at the floor after the phone call ended. I was glad I was there to comfort him.  So much had happened in two weeks. So much sadness and loss for him that he barely functioned. We became very close over those few days, being drawn together in this tragic event, alone in his family home; a home which I remembered so well. It hadn’t changed much in 30 years except now it was void of family noise. I’ve retained some special memories from that time with Dave, time we spent getting to know each other despite the sadness that broke through occasionally.

One night, after another all-day hospital visit, I was taking a bath and yelled out, “hey, there’s a rubber ducky in here.” Dave came in and knelt down on the floor next to the tub and started singing the Rubber Ducky song from the Muppets. The lighthearted performance, during an otherwise grim time, revealed Dave’s ability to handle the most heart wrenching moments by allowing his sense of humor and childlike comic behavior to burst forth. As I would later find out, it was a coping mechanism he had practiced since Vietnam and what was once a childhood playfulness became an epic response—his coping mechanism, during emotional events of many kinds. No one, including me, ever knew the depth of his battle wounds from Vietnam- he suffered his PTSD in secret.  He didn’t want to burden anyone else with his dark thoughts. We tried to keep the parting up beat as I prepared to leave.

[Music clip sleigh bells]

Carolynn: My Christmas had been lonely. My kids were busy with their friends, my daughter, son-in law, and my grandson were with her at her in-laws leaving me alone in the house for much of the holiday. I hadn’t talked to my husband since we separated but he called after Christmas and said he was filing for divorce. He had apparently just waited for the holidays to be over before he contacted me with this news which was not really news.

[Clip WITHOUT YOU as below]

I express my sadness over what seemed like a dismal life now in my 50th year. Dave comforted me and said the next 40 years would be wonderful. I told my diary, “I hope that everything works out that way, because I will really have no life if anything should happen to him.”

Carolynn:  In my Christmas letter for that year I wrote:

“Well, you wouldn’t know that another year had passed unless you got a letter from me announcing that I’d be having another name change. So as not to disappoint you, or throw your internal clock off, I changed my name ahead of time, on this Christmas letter. My new name will be my former maiden name which is the only thing I asked for in my divorce. In addition, if you are a really close friend or relative, this may not be news to you but there is more.  In what would appear to be a tilting of the earth event, I was reunited with my college sweetheart. It was magic.  I had given up on true love being experienced anywhere except in the story books. At 50 years of age I have found a companionship that will last a lifetime. This happened when I found my college sweetheart again.. We wish we had pursued it in our youth, but we have been given a second chance. We still have a lot of our lifetime left to share. I will be changing my name only one more time as I become

 Mrs. David Zorn.”

Carolynn [13 :45]:  Dave called me on New Year’s Eve Day. I recorded in my diary, he was melancholy. He had taken his dad back to California with him because he felt he shouldn’t be in the house alone. Dave struggled to see a path for both of them. They seemed joined in their grief and uncertainty about the future.  Dave and I were both feeling kind of down. So, we talked about New Year’s traditions during this phone call. I had a laugh.

[Tape” n y eve” as below]

I shared my feelings that it was a “nothing, stupid holiday, with forced gaiety.” So we decided that we’d have to have some new New Year’s Eve traditions. He started laughing and said “maybe one of them could be that we would go to the closet, with our bottle of champagne and make-out. Repeat the past.”  I didn’t remember but he told me a story from when we were dating.  He said we were at a party and to get away from everybody we went into the closet. He said one of the guys opened the door, looked at us, and then immediately closed the door. Later, his friend told the story to others and said that we “never broke our embrace when he peaked in.” So we decided to make that our New Year’s Eve tradition going forward. Next year was OUR year, Dave said. As it turned out, New Year’s Eve would acquire an entirely different tradition for us.

Carolynn:  One night I woke up and it was as if Dave was next to me because I could smell him. It was the second time that had happened. I thought when I turned over I would find him next to me. Was he was visiting me vicariously through his spirit or something? Amazingly, it would not be the last time I felt his presence when he wasn’t there at all.  

[Tape clip “Spouses” as below]

We call each other husband and wife. That seems like what we are ad I hope that God allows us to grow old together. I hope we have a long life together. It would be terrible to lose him after I just found him. We went to see the bridges of Madison County and that was a sweet story but not nearly as sweet as ours.

[Sound, ding, ding]

Carolynn:  I purchased my ticket for our next meeting in February in Phoenix where Dave was participating in a barber shop event.  At that time, Dave was going to take his father back to the Phoenix home after his month of living with Dave in California recovering from his heart attack and seeking something to ease his new widower status, he wanted to go home. I was anxious to see Dave again.

[Audio clip “start life over again”]

I just know I want him to be here. I want us to start our life together.

Carolynn (16:30): In February, my daughter who was living with me, suffered a great loss too. She was 42 weeks along with her second baby, Joseph, when he stopped kicking. He was stillborn on Valentine’s Day.   The whole family was grief stricken. And while I was trying to take care of her and my toddler grandson, I got a phone call from Dave. He seemed caught up in his world--his divorce or separation seemed on the back burner. He said he had to put his Dad first. I told him I understood that. He said he might look for a job while in Phoenix instead of one in Detroit while he was there. What? Where was this coming from? He had already told me several times that he couldn’t live apart from me and was planning to come to Detroit and bring his dad with him if he had to. I was losing patience. I was crying and angry—hurt and blue.

             I told him I was sad, grief stricken and unable to continue this dance—our affair. I said I believed that he was never going to leave his wife and that his talk of “someday” left me clinging to a dream. I felt so tired and morose. In my diary I copied a note I sent to him in which I said:

“Dave, I am very sorry about our phone call last night. I just attended the burial of my grandson. I shouldn’t have even tried to listen or deal with your divorce complications at this time.   I was angry because I needed you here and you couldn’t be here for me. Make whatever decisions you feel you must make for yourself. I will be here when you come, if you come, but I won’t wait forever. I have decided I must get out of this triangle for now. I will not see you again until you have left your wife. I am not able, in my despair, to come to Phoenix as we had originally planned. I will cancel my reservations. I do not want the phone calls to continue each day, either. I can’t take the daily dose of pain caused by waiting and hoping that the phone will ring and devastated when it doesn’t.” I then signed the note, with just my first name, Carolynn.”

[“Music box”sound]

Carolynn:   I had some mourning of my own to do and he seemed distant from me when   I most needed him! Selfishly, I felt I had been there for him when he was grieving and now he should be here for me and squeeze some of the grief out of my body with his huge hugs. He seemed uncaring and distant, caught up in his own activities seemingly unsympathetic to my loss and the burdens I had surrounding my family’s tragic event.

[Tape clip . . “I will always love you”]

I love you Dave very much. And whatever you decide I will still love you. It will hurt like hell but I will still love you and I will always love you.

Carolynn (19:30):  The grieving at my house was overwhelming. The burial was heartbreaking for everyone.  Joseph, who was almost too big for the baby coffin, was swaddled inside the quilt I stitched for; I didn’t know how to help my daughter. I didn’t know how to manage the cloud of grief which hung over the household even though I had helped Dave navigate his. Our break-up left me feeling abandoned, untethered from my mooring. Adrift.

I received a sympathy card from Dave in which he added:

[Clip male voice over: Sorry about Joseph]

Carolynn, So sorry about your grandson—so sorry I let you down—Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’ve been an idiot! Don’t give up on me. Our day will come. You’re my love of loves. I won’t live without you. Dave

Carolynn:  To escape the grief, despair and loneliness, I decided to go ahead and use my ticket and go to Phoenix but with no plan on visiting Dave. My mom tried to be comforting but all I did was cry. I was crying for Dave, for his Mom, for my grandson, for blows to the heart of everyone suffering the loss of a loved one. I was practicing the grief walk not realizing I would need it later as life delivered more death to my door step. After two days of sobbing, my Mom said, “call him, you know where he is staying, and tell him how you feel. You guys belong together.”

[Barbershop tag: “so tired of waiting for you”]

Carolynn:  I called and left a message for him with the backstage manager at the barbershop venue. I said I was his sister. Couldn’t very well say I was his mistress. He got the message and as soon as the barbershop event was over that night, the last night of the gig, he phoned.  He believed I was lost to him after my terse letter, but said he wanted to see me and hoped that I still wanted him in my life saying:

[“Be friends clip”]

Unless you say let’s just be friends, I’ll understand that but you will break my heart if you say that.

Carolynn:  He picked me up and we spent the rest of the night talking. We hung onto each other as if our lives depended on it—we both hurt but now we were sharing our hurt. He was driving back to California the next morning and we decided I could accompany him and he would drop me off at the airport in LA.

[“Convertible” clip]

Picture yourself in the passenger seat with the top down and that would be real nice.

 Carolynn:  I grabbed my suitcase and thanked Mom for her support for us and her kindness during our grief and confusion. This drive gave us a whole day together in the car until we reached LAX. In the terminal, while waiting for the boarding to begin, we hugged and kissed clinging to each other as if static wouldn’t allow us to part. People were watching us but we didn’t care. Then as I was about to walk through the door and down the jet way he yelled a cheery, “Bye Sis!” That brought a lot of startled looks from the faces around us, considering what we had been doing. I had to laugh. He wanted to cheer me up and he succeeded with his spontaneous comic outburst.  It was like the restaurant scene from the movie, When Harry Met Sally. You know the one I mean.

[Clip Nov. 1994” also called “together”]

He’s like a part of me and I don’t know what my life would be without him and I think he feels the same way. We were meant for each other and we certainly want to spend the rest of our lives together

Carolynn (23:40):  Dave finally separated from his wife in April of 1995. He had secretly moved his personal possessions to his friend’s house over the preceding few months. When his lawyer called him after the divorce papers were served, Dave went straight from work to the airport to fly to Michigan. He knew, for his own safety, he had to leave town. He had already secured a position at WWJ radio in Detroit. In a tape to Dave I said:

[Tape about the Duke of Windsor story and Mrs. Simpson]

I couldn’t help but see a comparison when I watched The Duke of Windsor story on TV with Jane Seymour playing the duchess and him giving up the thrown of England for his true love. Here’s this person who’s in the number one slot in the number one news stations in one of the number one major target areas in the US and he’s winning noting but award after award after award and he’s going to give all that up and he’s going to come to Detroit at 30 thousand dollars less than he was making before. So it’s been a really tough week for us. The good news is that he has a job. I told him I was crying, I’m not..I’m not Mrs. Simpson and I’m not sure I’m worth him giving everything up for. I feel so badly, I’m afraid someday he might hate me.

Carolynn:   He came. The day I feared would never happen was happening.

[“Welcome to the family” clip from Christine]

Introducing DAVE ZORN. Welcome to Michigan! Welcome to our family!

We wanted to let you know how happy we are that you joined our family,! You are a brave man!!! Welcome!

The kids

(Signed Jolie, Bob, Christine, Robert and baby)

Carolynn: My son took to Dave as if I had brought home a new puppy for him. They started hanging out together, since Dave was working the overnight shift at WWJ, and was home during the day.

[Clip about Bobby and SAT’s as below]

One night, we heard my son running up the stairs to our bedroom and Dave joked,” do you think he is going to jump into bed with us?”  He was excited and wanted to show us his great SAT scores immediately.

Carolynn:  Dave and I needed to buy a new mattress when he moved in.

[Clip “shop for bed” as below]

When we were shopping we couldn’t make up our minds.  “Well, we’ll both whisper to you our favorite one and then you decide,” I told the clerk. I leaned in and whispered my choice and started to walk away as Dave was doing the same.  I turned around and said over my shoulder, “I know what he said. He said do whatever she says-- say that’s the one.” The startled clerk looked at me and said, “Boy, you guys must have been married for a long time.” Dave had used the exact same words that I had predicted he would. Dave and I chuckled over that.

Carolynn: In my diary I wrote about our visit to Joseph’s grave. My precious grandson; buried in the infant section at the very back of the cemetery next to the fence. Every time I went there I saw fresh graves.

[Clip about visit to grave as below]

I was quiet and solemn as I put fresh flowers and a toy on the tombstone. When I got back in the car, Dave leaned over and put his hand on my hand and quietly said, “If you ever want to come again, whenever you want to come, just let me know and I’ll bring you.” This revealed the caring, loving guy everyone who met him attested to.

Carolynn (27:20):  We visited my therapist.

[Clip “ Ann” as below}

She seemed to grill Dave about his intensions, wanting to make sure he was serious about our relationship. She said, “Carolynn needs some care. She can’t take any more stress in her life.” I went on to share some feelings Dave and I had discussed the night before. That although I was deliriously happy about Dave and I finally being together, we both felt a terrible sense of loss for all the years that we didn’t get to share, for not having our children together, sharing the many family life events with each other. I didn’t want it to ruin what we had now. She said it was a very common reaction; like someone who’s aspired to or always dreamed about having a certain occupation and then wakes up one day at 60 years of age and realizes that he’s never going to have it. She advised us to keep talking and it would get better as we built up new memories.

Carolynn: We were doing the normal things lovers would do . . .

 [Clip “movies” as below]

One afternoon we went to the movie, While You Were Sleeping. When the lights came up and people were walking out of the theatre, we were hugging and kissing. Someone in the aisle made a comment about the movie turning us into lovers. We laughed and Dave, of course, had a come-back. He said, “We were lovers before the movie came on.”

Carolynn:  Dave’s father never really recovered from his heart attack. He was in and out of the hospital and was in a long-term care facility undergoing treatment when Dave got another unwanted phone call in December. His dad had died during the night.  Statistics show that an alarming number of spouses die within a year of each other when they have been in a loving, long term relationship. Dave and I had talked about it and we were trying to figure out how and when we could settle in a place with room so his Dad could live with us. But now, it was too late. I had sent two letters to his dad chatting about the family and telling him that I would see him at Christmas; now I wouldn’t see him again. Dave had lost his mom, his dog, and his dad in just one year and I had lost my grandson.  But the year of loss wasn’t over.

[Barbershop tag: It wouldn’t hurt if I didn’t care]

Carolynn (30:28): Dave and I were on our way to the grocery store when I turned to him and said, we have to go home. Something is wrong. After talking to my doctor on the phone, Dave took me to the hospital. I had a D & C and was told that I had had a miscarriage. I was shocked into numbness after all I was 50 years old. We came home, and a few days later Dave returned to California for a court appearance.  We never spoke about it much after that. My daughter was having fertility issues and had also suffered a miscarriage and so I kept my heartache to myself. Many years later, I would revisit it and lament the child I didn’t have, the child conceived in love who was a part of Dave.   I kept that child hidden in my heart in the decades that followed.  Our wedding plans appeared as a mirage; something seen in the distance but unreachable.

[Barbershop tag: When the Raindrops Come Along—fade out]

Carolynn:  Thank you to my friend who was kind enough to do the male voice over, also thanks to my daughter Christine for reading the card she wrote to Dave. Thanks also to The Barbershop Harmony Society for the clips and to my wonderful webmaster, Jon, for uploading my files.

[Music clip: May You Never Know-fade in and out]

 Carolynn:  In the next episode, our relationship is cemented with the daily life of ordinary living and loving. We are together, relocated in California, with Dave back on KNX Radio. We felt settled—we are happy. But was there ever a wedding?

[theme music fade out]

 Carolynn:  Tune in to episode five coming next. I call it, “Magic Love.” You’ll hear about our new apartment, , all of the KNX awards that Dave won, our experience being snowbirds basically the next decades of our life together.

Carolynn:  Thank you for listening.

[Paradise theme fades out]