On Doug (known at our house as The Bouch-Bag)

I don't even know where to begin today. My mind is going a million miles a minute trying to comprehend the horrible tragedy that has happened here.

I got a call at work today from a dear friend, who told me that someone had just informed her our friend Doug had died. I was dumbfounded for a moment and then I heard her say he was tased by police and it killed him.

All I could think was, this can't be true. But moments later she was sending me a link to the story of what happened. This was not the Doug Boucher that we knew and loved. And I can't help but think that if these people really KNEW Doug, like we do, they would have realized that he was a harmless guy, he said obscene things and he acted crazy, but he was a GOOD GUY. He didn't deserve for his life to end this way. He didn't deserve to leave behind his little girl, who he loved so much.

I have so many things I want to say, but right now I can't find the words to properly express myself. I know in my head what I want this blog to say, yet I am unable to be coherent enough to properly put hands to keyboard.

Micah knew Doug for 15 years. He was Micah's bass teacher and the bass player he eventually replaced in Surrender Dorothy. He was a friend, a mentor, a teacher, and a peer. He was just a giant teddy bear of a guy who didn't mean any harm. Sure he let the C-bomb fly on a regular basis and sang songs about hitting on 16 year old girls in the Dollar General, but he was a good guy, a great father, and a dear friend.

I would never deny, nor would anyone else who knew Doug, that he could be crude, obscene and outlandish. But if you knew him, you knew that it was all good-natured. He never meant harm when he called his friends an obscene nickname, it was just his way of showing he cared.

I've read the articles and honestly, this is not the Doug Boucher we knew. And what sickens me is the commenters on these articles about him. People calling him a criminal and a bad person. These people didn't know Doug and for them to say horrible things about this man is unacceptable to me.

I know this has been rambling and incoherent, and for that I apologize. I thank you for sticking with me this long. I started wanting to write a tribute to a great friend, but I don't feel that's what I've done here. Soon my thoughts will become more aligned and I will be able to pay proper tribute to Doug.

For now, I will just say, thank you for being a part of our lives, you have contributed so much to the man I love and respect as my husband and for that I will be eternally grateful. You were a good man, Doug, and nothing will ever change that opinion for those of us who knew and loved you.

I know that you didn't believe in Heaven or my religious ideas, but I hope you're out there somewhere tonight, looking over your sweet Katie and all of your friends who will miss you so dearly. If there's a Rock N Roll Heaven, they just got one hell of a bass player.