March 1, 1994

"Loss in all  of its manifestations is the touchstone of depression...one dreads the loss of all things, all people close and dear. There is an acute fear of abandonment."
                                                                William Styron  -  Darkness Visible

I have had a fear of abandonment and homelessness since I was a kid, when my mother would take me shopping in downtown Boston - and I would see "bums," as they were called then, discarded and forgotten men and women shuffling silently and sadly along the sidewalks and sleeping shamelessly on park benches in Boston Common.

I was mesmerized by these people and when I got older  and came home during college vacations, I would go to Boston and speak with these men - give them cigarettes and share a six-pack of beer with them. There was a hopelessness about them that both frightened me and attracted me. As I soon realized the only difference between us was that I money and a home to go to.

Today, I am so afraid my bones rattle, for I have come to share the feeling of the men I befriended so long ago - the utter hopelessness and loneliness of being abandoned and homeless.  Since New Year's I've been able to stay at home three or four nights a week, sleeping on a couch in the den - and to be allowed to do that, I needed to get a lawyer.  I spend most weekends in a drunken stupor and sleeping on the floor of the Jack Conway office.

My parents have been more than kind and loving, offering all sorts of help. But I cannot burden them with all my problems and feelings.

Before Maggie asked for a divorce, I had done my Christmas shopping. The Christmas gift I bought her, Calico dishes I had specially shipped from England, is still in its box under a table in the living room, unopened.  Maggie never wished me a Merry Christmas, and on my birthday all she said to me was, "Are you going to be home tonight?"

These are small slights compared to some of the things she has said and done. But I find them more painful, probably because they are so poignantly personal. After all, even strangers wish one another a Merry Christmas and even the most casual acquaintance can wish another a Happy Birthday.

There is nothing worse than abandonment and loneliness is misery without hope. Abandonment is worse than death, it leaves the body and soul weak and wounded - crying in the wilderness with no one there to hear or help. Abandonment is uncontrollable fear - watch an animal show on TV and see kittens or puppies abandoned by their mothers and what you see is the fear of complete helplessness.

This is what abandonment and loneliness have done to me - they have entombed me in the misery of helplessness and hopelessness.  And like the homeless men of my youth, I must shuffle silently and sadly toward my death.

11:00am   -   Harborview   -   Chatham.MA

 

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