Widow's Voice

As this Odyssey of Love Expands~

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My rig, PinkMagic.  I bought her brand new following Chuck’s death. I had to find a way to continue the life that Chuck and I lived on the road. Emotionally, I just couldn’t bear to do it in the way that he and I did for 4 years; staying at lodging on military bases, and at inexpensive hotels. How tragically sad would it be…a country western tune gone wrong…for me, as a widow, to sit in a  godforsaken back of beyond and lonely hotel room on the back roads of our country. As devastated as I was, that would be too much even for me. Also…I knew that doing so would only lead to isolation, and isolating myself could only lead me down a dark tunnel.

So, I bought a tiny [email protected] Teardrop trailer, and keeping in mind what I’d told Chuck before he died I’ll paint my car pink so that you can find me out on the road, I painted it in the same shade of pink I’d had created for my car Chuck’s Watchin’ Over Me, and set out on the road on my Odyssey of Love.

I’ve lived on the Love he left behind for me. I’ve reached out and created a country wide community of Love and support and encouragement for myself.  My rig has drawn people to me everywhere. Why all the pink? is what they’re wondering. And I tell them about my beloved husband whose left behind Love keeps me going, and I hear their stories. It’s the only reason I’m sane, I’m certain.

110,000 miles. 8 times crisscross the USA in all directions. Hugs given and received. 

I take no part of this lightly. It is truly an Odyssey of Love. I reach out to people and they reach out to me. 

It has, for these 4 years and 8 months, been about Chuck.

But now…now it is time to broaden this Odyssey of Love. Time to make it more powerful. Time to take the inspired Love and bring more Love into it.

Last Friday evening, I wrote a post on my Happily Homeless is MoonStruck page, about this very thing. That it is time to take this Odyssey to the next level.

Send me the names of your loved ones, I asked. #SayTheirName Send me the name of your person and I’ll write it on the broad canvas of my rig, PinkMagic. I will take their names and write them in red pen on my rig and their names and their left behind Love and your Love and your Love for them will travel with me around the country. 

PinkMagic will become a moving memorial to those we love. I will carry their names with me in all directions and people around the country will read their names and speak their names. 

This Odyssey of Love has always been bigger than me and Chuck, and I’ve known that from the beginning. Each step occurs as it needs to occur. For years now I’ve wanted to add more…something…to the outside of my rig, but I could never figure out exactly what it would be.

Until Friday evening, when i realized that what it requires are the names of all our loved ones from my widowed community. 

In 12 hours, I gathered 150 names. 

There is more space. Please send the name of your person to me, and I’ll add it to PinkMagic. Or, if you want to wait until I come to where you are, you can write it yourself. http://widowsvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/15940809_1163901093679052_5201572318900429783_n.jpg

I plan on holding meet and greets as I travel you can catch updates on my Happily Homeless is MoonStruck page. I plan on inviting my sister and brother widows you to come meet me and write your person’s name on my rig yourself. I plan on contacting the media in each area where I stay for more than a couple days, to come and take pictures, because I want to bring widowhood out of the shadows and give us all an opportunity to tell our stories.

None of us are living the story we want to live, or wished to live. It sucks and it hurts and we miss them. God we miss them. And, at the same time, there is so much Love that they left behind for us and I, by god, will make that Love as tangible as can be, by writing their names on my lovely little pink trailer, towed by my equally pink car. 

This Odyssey of Love? It’s about all of us and about all of the men and women who loved us, who are no longer on this earth.

#SayTheirName here, and I’ll write it in my book and then write it on PinkMagic.

This Odyssey of Love just got more powerful, and I invite you all to join me, as it continues~

 

 

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~

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