Widow's Voice

As Life Continues~

| Posted by:

It goes on, doesn’t it?  Whether we wish it or not, whether we have the energy for it, or not.  Life goes on after our husbands and wives and lovers and partners die. 

It just goes on.

Life after this huge death impacts us in so many ways that are incalculable beforehand.  Even when you’ve prepared the wills and the DNR and you’ve talked in as many ways as you can about what you each want and your one who is dying has said please carry on without me.  Please be happy.  Please find someone to love again.  I’ll be there with you.   And in return you’ve promised that you’ll be okay somehow and you’ll always remember him/her and you’ll make it work. 

Even though.

Even though we all know that no matter how much talking is done, there is no way to prepare for the reality of widowhood.  None.  Nada.  Zero.  Zilch.  Even though you think you have. 

You haven’t.

There is no preparation for the devastation, the despair, the pain of grief, the stripping away of a life, the loneliness, the (most often) enormous financial changes, the change of lifestyle, the responsibilities carried now by one instead of two, the necessity of making a new life at a time when all the aforementioned shit is happening.   How can anyone have any knowing of this, before it happens?

The after-knowing….ahhh, yes.  Now we know.  We know a secret that none should know and yet, because life happens, and death happens in life, we will all, at some point, be made privy to the same secret.

That, fuck, life does indeed continue on, and it drags us kicking and screaming while we attempt to fulfill our promises to them.  Yes, I’m trying to be okay somehow and ohgodyesIrememberyounowandalwaysandforever and yes, I’ll keep trying to make it work somehow.  Yes, yes, yes…

And it works better on some days than others but, you know….whatever.  I give myself credit for just showing up anymore.

I don’t know, folks.  I have no answers as to how we do this.  Shit, I don’t even know the questions any longer… but the great thing about that is that I don’t give a grand flying fuck minute of worry or anxiety about not having questions or answers. 

All I’m doing these days is trusting in the Love that Chuck left behind for me.  In my heart I listen to his final words every damn day;  No matter what, I will always, always be with you.  And no matter how long it is until I see you again, I will see you again.  And you remember every day…every day…  P.S.  I love you.

I just don’t need any more than that. 

                                                http://widowsvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/untitledcc.png

About Alison Miller

My beloved husband Chuck died while we were full timing on the road. We’d rented a condo for our stay in southern CA, and I had to leave 3 weeks after his death. All I knew at that time was that I had to find a way to continue traveling on my own, because settling down without him made me break into a cold sweat. I knew that the only place I’d find any connection to Chuck again was out on the roads we’d been traveling for our last 4 years together. I knew nobody out on the road, I knew grief was a great isolator, and I knew I had to change the way I traveled without him, to make it more emotionally bearable for me. So I bought a new car, had a shade of pink customized for it, bought a tiny trailer and painted the trim in pink, learned how to tow and camp, and set out alone. My anxiety was through the roof, and all I knew to trust was the Love that Chuck left behind for me. I found Soaring Spirits early on, thank god, and the connections I made through SS helped ground me to some extent. I needed to know that other widow/ers were out there in my world, because I felt so disoriented and dislocated. Through Soaring Spirits, as the miles added up, my rig taking me north, south, east and west, I found community. I found sanity…or at least I learned that if I was bat shit crazy, I was in good company, and realizing that ultimately saved my sanity. PinkMagic, my rig, is covered with hundreds of names of loved ones sent to me by my widowed community, and I know it isn’t visible to the naked eye, but I’ll let you in on a secret…she actually illuminates Love as I drive down the many roads in our country, and I can see it through my side view mirror. Love does, indeed, live on~

TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON A BLOG, sign in to the comments section using your Facebook or Gmail accounts, or sign up for Disqus.