'I was better in Lynn Shelton's gaze.'
Marc Maron is remembering his late girlfriend, Lynn Shelton. During the latest episode of his podcast, WTF With Marc Maron, the 56-year-old host emotionally eulogized Shelton, who died on Saturday as a result of a previously unidentified blood disorder. She was 54.
"She was my partner. She was my girlfriend. She was my friend. And I loved her. I loved her. A lot. And she loved me, and I knew that," Maron began. "I don’t know that I had ever felt what I felt with her before. I do know, actually. I did not. I have not. I was getting used to love in the way of being able to accept it and show it properly in an intimate relationship."
"I was so comfortable with this person, with Lynn Shelton -- and I'm not really that comfortable emotionally or otherwise -- I was able to exist in a place of self-acceptance because of her love for me," Maron continued, while getting choked up. "I made her laugh all the time, and she made me laugh, and we were happy. We laughed a lot. We played Crazy Eights, we cooked food together, we traveled, we wrote."
Maron went on to detail the events leading up to Shelton's death, which began with an illness that they both assumed was strep throat. When Shelton's fever remained for days despite a negative coronavirus test and a virtual doctor visit, she made an appointment to get blood tests in person.
"We were going to go to the doctor for blood tests on Friday and in the middle of the night I heard her collapse in the hallway on her way to the bathroom," Maron recalled through sobs. "And I got up and she was on the floor and she couldn't move. She was conscious but delirious a bit. I called 9-1-1, they came and they got her. And that was the last time I saw her alive, was on the floor, being taken away."
While doctors at two hospitals "tried everything they could" through problems with anemia, low blood pressure and internal bleeding, "they eventually had to let her go."
"They tried everything they could. They took her off life support and she passed away," he said. "I called the ambulance at around five in the morning on Friday and by 12:45 a.m. Saturday she was gone."
Maron was able to visit Shelton in the hospital following her death, a time during which "I told her I loved her, I touched her forehead, and I left."
"She was an amazing woman. She was an inspiration to so many people. So many people loved her. She was a determined artist, who just needed to put her expression out into the world in any way," Maron said. "Tremendous love for people, for her friends, for her son, Milo. My relationship with her, I can't explain. But I gotta tell ya, no one's got anything bad to say about Lynn Shelton, that’s for f**king sure."
"She was amazing. Her movies were amazing, they are amazing," he continued. "Everybody who's worked with her, loved her. And everybody's reaching out to me now and it's really helping and I'm so glad that Lynn was so well-loved."
The rest of the podcast episode was comprised of Maron's 2015 interview with Shelton, which was the first time he and the director met in person.
"I was nervous because I knew she had some affiliation with my ex-wife. I did not know if she was friends with my ex-wife or what that would mean. I didn't know anything. But I needed to talk to her," he said. "I saw some of her movies. I was curious about her. So I said, 'OK, let's try it. Let's try it. I'm going to talk to this Lynn Shelton. I want to meet this Lynn Shelton.' But I didn't know what to expect. At the time she was married and I was with somebody."
Despite their taken status, Maron said that, listening to the episode in retrospect, "it's undeniable that we connected."
"My connection with her is almost seamless. I have no self-consciousness really when I'm with her. I'm totally comfortable, even in my infantile ridiculousness," he said. "I was definitely a better person when I was engaged with her; as a comic, as a guitar player, as a human, as a lover, as everything. I was better in Lynn Shelton's gaze."
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