Adrift at Sea —Dan’s blog on dankim.com

In so many ways, the future I talked about with the woman I love is now only a dream. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley has clearly fallen to her addictions and there is nothing left of the amazing woman I asked to marry me but the drug-addicted alcoholic that is all that anyone has seen for the last eighteen months.

Today is Lauren Elizabeth Kelley’s last day of finals for her fall semester of her junior year at Emmanuel College. I hope that she has done better than she did her sophomore year. While I don’t know how she has done, I am hoping that it is better than the fall semester a year ago, where Lauren Elizabeth Kelley was so out of touch with classes and her studies that she posted that she was just getting into the swing of school during finals week—having spent most of the semester in a drug-and-alcohol induced haze.

After much thought and consideration, I have decided to walk away from Lauren Elizabeth Kelley this January. It isn’t that I don’t love Lauren Elizabeth Kelley—in fact, my love for Lauren Elizabeth Kelley has only grown stronger over the past year-and-a-half. If you truly love someone, their absence from your life doesn’t weaken your love for them—true love only grows over time—even if the person you love isn’t with you. This has been true for my love for Lauren Elizabeth Kelley, as it is for my love for Gee.

It isn’t that I want to abandon Lauren Elizabeth Kelley—I am still as committed to the amazing, beautiful, funny, strong, smart, capable, adorable, and lovable woman that loves me as I have ever been. I have realized her addictions are slowly destroying not only Lauren Elizabeth Kelley, but me as well. If all that is left of the incredible woman I love is the drug-addicted alcoholic, then there is no reason for me to stay.

This is how I choose to remember Lauren Elizabeth Kelley,the incredible woman I love. I choose to remember her as she was—when she still believed in herself, loved herself and trusted herself. I choose to remember her when she knew we loved each other—even if only as friends—and knew who she and I were to each other.

I choose to remember Lauren Elizabeth Kelley as the person who knew what it was like to laugh, smile and be loved by me—the young woman that let me walk up behind her and wrap my arms around her waist in a hug and rest my chin on her shoulder—the woman who would smile when I would wake her with gifts of iced coffee and mini-cheesecakes—the woman I would give stomach raspberries and hold her when she’d squirm and wriggle as I tickled her. I choose to remember Lauren Elizabeth Kelley as the woman who spent a week talking about the future we both wanted that had Asians with freckles, us getting married and raising a family and so much more.

I doubt it is any coincidence that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley, one of the most honest people I have ever known, stopped speaking to me after I confronted her about her drinking. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley knows that she couldn’t deny it without lying to me and I think that some part of her would rather not speak to me than have to lie to the man she loves—that she is too honest fundamentally to allow her addictions to make her lie to me. We had just spent the week previous talking about having children, getting married and everything that was involved in starting a life together.

I have come to the realization that unless Lauren Elizabeth Kelley—the incredible woman I love—is here to fight her addictions with me, all staying can do is destroy me, the man she loves. I have learned, painfully over the last eighteen months of fighting to try and help the woman I love, that her addictions and watching them destroy everything I love about Lauren Elizabeth Kelley is making me become someone that I would loathe and despise as much as Lauren Elizabeth Kelley would loathe and despise the drug-addicted alcoholic she has become if she were healthy.

If I want to remain myself—remain the person who Lauren Elizabeth Kelley loves—remain the person who loves Lauren Elizabeth Kelley—then I have to walk away. Walking away will not be easy—but it is necessary for me to stay healthy and whole. If I stay, I will be destroyed by Lauren Elizabeth Kelley’s addictions long before I will be able to help her—long before she realizes she is a drug-addict and an alcoholic and that she needs to fight her addictions.

Two nights ago, I had another dream of Lauren Elizabeth Kelley. We were in the hospital, but unlike a previous dream, where Lauren Elizabeth Kelley was in the hospital because she had been seriously injured in an alcohol-fueled car crash, this was for a different and happy reason. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley was in labor and I was sitting beside her, holding her hand and coaching her through the labor contractions—awaiting the birth of our first child. I awoke before our child was born, so don’t know if it was the daughter I have seen in my previous dreams of us.

I don’t know if Lauren Elizabeth Kelley and I will ever have the Asians with freckles we talked about—the ones she wanted to name Kelley and Cadence—the ones she said she adored. Given my Korean heritage and Lauren Elizabeth Kelley’s red-haired, freckled alabaster skinned Irish countenance—Asians with freckles is likely what our children would be. I hope my dream is a portent of a future to come, rather than of something her addictions have stolen from us both.

I still dream of marrying my beautiful, strong, feisty, smart, funny and lovable freckled, red-haired Irish rose. I know Lauren Elizabeth Kelley is the woman Gee asked me to look for after she was gone. I have loved Lauren Elizabeth Kelley all of her life and I know I always will.

Even though this song is about breast cancer, I think the idea of being committed to someone with any illness is one that is important to me. I saw Shelley and Gee through their fights with cancer and I have pledged to see Lauren Elizabeth Kelley through her long road to recovery from her addictions to alcohol and drugs if she were willing to fight her addictions. This was a promise I made to her, her mother Sue and her sister Bridget.

I do not understand how people can abandon someone they love because of an illness. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley is still the person I love and still the woman I asked to marry me. Though Lauren Elizabeth Kelley’s addictions have made her behave in ways that she would never do if she were healthy, fundamentally, she is still the same person she was before she fell to her addictions. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley still has the same beliefs, the same morals, the same core honesty that she always did.

If she ever fights her addictions enough for her to return to being her true self, and asks me to marry her, I would in a heartbeat, even knowing that it means walking beside her on her long road to recovery for the rest of my life. But, then again, that is merely what I have promised the beautiful, smart, strong, sexy, lovable, funny, brave, honest, and sweet woman I adore.

I don’t know if Lauren Elizabeth Kelley will ever find the strength, will and courage to fight her addictions or face her fears. I am walking away so that if my beautiful and much beloved Lauren Elizabeth Kelley does find the strength, courage and will to face her fears, insecurities and self-doubts and finally fight her addictions I will be strong enough and healthy enough to help her—that I will be able to walk beside her on her long road to recovery as I have promised.

If Lauren Elizabeth Kelley finds the strength, courage and will to fight her addictions and to make amends for the horrific devastation and lies her addictions have caused her to do and say, then I hope she will seek me out. I do not hold what her addictions have made her say and do against her and forgive her for them since I can no more blame Lauren Elizabeth Kelley for what her addictions have made her say and do than I could have blamed Gee for the complications caused by her cancer.

But, Lauren Elizabeth Kelley is responsible for making amends for what she has said and done because of her addictions. This is a necessary part of her recovery process and if she finds the strength and courage to make amends, I hope she will come and tell me and ask to be a part of my life again. If Lauren Elizabeth Kelley is once again herself and can prove to me that she has made a place for me beside her in her life and is willing to fight to keep me there and is as committed to us and our relationship as I have always been—I will welcome her back in to my life.

The amazing woman that loves me knows that these requirements are not negotiable and only the least of what I deserve for being steadfast, loyal and loving beyond any reasonable measure—especially when the drug-addicted alcoholic did so much to be undeserving of such loyalty and devotion. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley will know that this is the right thing to do if she wants me back in her life.

God Bless you Lauren Elizabeth.

May God watch over you and protect you from all harm—even that you cause yourself.

I hope God gives you the strength to fight your addictions and the wisdom to see the truth about what the alcohol and drugs are doing to you.

I pray that God grants you the serenity and peace you will need to love yourself once again and to forgive yourself for the things your addictions have made you do.

I ask that God helps you find your way back to being the amazing, beautiful, intelligent, feisty, stubborn, strong, and devout woman He wants you to be.

Finally, may He grant you the ability to see yourself as I do and let you remember who we are to each other; let you remember the years of friendship, love and devotion we once shared; and give you the strength to make amends so we can start the future together we talked about last June.

All this in Jesus’s name I pray.

Amen.

“Marry Me”

Forever can never be long enough for me
To feel like I’ve had long enough with you
Forget the world now we won’t let them see
But there’s one thing left to do

Now that the weight has lifted
Love has surely shifted my way

Marry me
Today and every day
Marry me
If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe
Say you will
Mm-hmm
Say you will
Mm-hmm

Together could never be close enough for me
To feel like I am close enough to you
You’ll wear white and I’ll wear out the words “I love you”
And “you’re beautiful”
Now that the wait is over
And love and has finally shown her my way

Marry me
Today and every day
Marry me
If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe
Say you will
Mm-hmm
Say you will
Mm-hmm

Promise me
You’ll always be
Happy by my side
I promise to
Sing to you
When all the music dies

Marry me
Today and everyday
Marry me
If I ever get the nerve to say hello in this cafe
Say you will
I will
Come on say you will
You know I will
Marry me

“I’m Gonna Love You Through It”

She dropped the phone and burst into tears
The doctor just confirmed her fears
Her husband held it in and held her tight
Cancer don’t discriminate or care if you’re just 38
With three kids who need you in their lives
He said, “I know that you’re afraid and I am, too
But you’ll never be alone, I promise you”

When you’re weak, I’ll be strong
When you let go, I’ll hold on
When you need to cry, I swear that I’ll be there to dry your eyes
When you feel lost and scared to death,
Like you can’t take one more step
Just take my hand, together we can do it
I’m gonna love you through it.

She made it through the surgery fine
They said they caught it just in time
But they had to take more than they planned
Now it’s forced smiles and baggy shirts
To hide what the cancer took from her
But she just wants to feel like a woman again
She said, “I don’t think I can do this anymore”
He took her in his arms and said “That’s what my love is for”

When you’re weak, I’ll be strong
When you let go, I’ll hold on
When you need to cry, I swear that I’ll be there to dry your eyes
When you feel lost and scared to death,
Like you can’t take one more step
Just take my hand, together we can do it
I’m gonna love you through it.

And when this road gets too long
I’ll be the rock you lean on
Just take my hand, together we can do it
I’m gonna love you through it.
I’m gonna love you through it.