Widow's Voice

Dissed

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Dislocated.  Discombobulated.  Disconnected.  Disengaged.  Disjointed.  Disrupted.  Disarranged.  Disoriented.

My career for 10 years or so was in hospice bereavement support.  I facilitated groups of all sorts and one of my handouts contained many words used to describe the emotional/physical/spiritual elements of grief.

In the year since my husband Chuck died, I’ve come up with totally different words to describe my grief.  I call them the dis words.  Each one of them is more accurate than any words I used back then.

He and I spent 4 years traveling the USA together.  He was my home.  I was his.  He died.  I belong nowhere any longer.  I still live on the road, in a small pink-trimmed trailer, towed by a pink car.  I drive and drive and drive and I honestly don’t see a damn thing.  I’m truly dislocated.

My brain is foggy.  You want to hear something pathetic?  I tried a shirt on in a dressing room the other day, after removing my t-shirt.  The other shirt didn’t fit and I removed it and when I looked around, I couldn’t find my t-shirt.  Anywhere (and the space was small, as dressing rooms are).  And I actually questioned myself as to whether I’d been wearing a shirt when I entered the dressing room!  That’s how much I distrust my awareness these days.  I was sure I’d worn a shirt in because how could I not?  And yet I couldn’t find it, which made me doubt I’d worn one.  (Yes, I did find it, finally, after starting to sweat for a few minutes.  It had fallen underneath the bench).

As I drive this country, I see that, yes, of course, there is so much beauty.  Sunsets are beautiful.  I love my kids.  I meet people who hug me and I hug them back.  I know I must feel something but it doesn’t penetrate to my heart.  I feel disconnected from everything.  And that worries me.

My heart races continually, my blood races underneath my skin and my nerves are on top of my skin.  Body under major stress, I know and I know what I can do about it, in part, (physical exercise and meditation) but, quite frankly, I have no energy to do anything and can’t seem to get organized enough to add it into my days.  I’m disoriented.

Dis words.  These and many more describe me best in this, my second year without him.  My world has turned upside down, inside out and there is not one single thing I do or think about in my days or nights that doesn’t pound it into my soul again that he is forever gone.

Its all about survival right now.  Just survive today then survive tonight.  Repeat.

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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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