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One Powerful Word~

Posted on: November 11, 2015 | Posted by: Alison Miller

At some point we all need to search for what’s good in our lives after the love of our life dies, right?  Leaving us behind.

So, I’ve thought and thought again about it and there is really little that I would qualify as good enough that it takes away the sharpness of Chuck’s absence from my life.  Yes, I have my kids, my grands, family and friends and I’m glad for that, but it doesn’t take that sting away.

Nothing does.  BUT.

I will tell you that, since watching him die, since I bathed and dressed him, wrapped his body in blankets and helped zip him into the body bag, assisted the morticians in lifting his body to the gurney that would wheel him out of my life forever…since covering him with 30 bouquets of colorful flowers and pressing the switch that admitted his body into the crematorium…since all of these things, here is one thing that rings loudly and true in my life.

There is hardly anything that I give a fuck about any longer.  In a good way.  In a way that means I am not intimidated by those who try to intimidate me.

Not by car salesmen when I negotiated a new car for myself so that I would be safe on the road alone.

Not by bill collectors who threaten my credit.

Not by those who wish me to fit into a mold of their choosing.

Not by those who want the old me back when I know damn well that woman is gone gone gone.

Not by expectations from others.

Not by criticism.

Not by judgement.

In the best of ways, I don’t give a fuck any longer about shit that doesn’t deserve giving a fuck about.  Nor do I care if people get offended by my use of the word fuck.  Before Chuck died I might have been more careful where and when I used the word.  Since his death, honestly, it is my all-time favorite word that describes so much and can be used in so many ways:  What the fuck I don’t give a fuck holy fuck fucked up fucking hell or just plain fuck!

It’s an incredibly useful adjective that really gets the point across.  It’s a verb. It’s an adverb.  It’s my favorite word.  It strengthens my resolve on a daily basis and frees me from guilt, regrets, wouldas, shouldas, couldas.  

I never use it in anger against a person because using it in the first place dissipates the intensity of any given possibly volatile situation.  I just use it because it is, by far, THE best word to describe how I feel about life since Chuck died.  

Out of all the words in the English language, this is the one that best describes, for me, the helplessness of watching him die, the numbness and grief, the grit and determination that I must cultivate every day in order to create a life without him, the missing-ness…all of it.

My mom used to say that we’re the ones who give power to words.  I was still new to the word back when she was alive but daringly said it one day in conversation with her, a few months before she died and it didn’t faze her.  Chuck used to tell me that I ought not use it as often as I did; he thought I’d unnecessarily offend people.

Good thing he isn’t around to hear me say it as often as I do now.  On the other hand, he’d get it entirely about why I use it so frequently.

Fuck it.  It means full steam ahead, good to go, up and at ‘em, steady as she goes…it conveys it all.

Four letters. One word. And no apologies. If people aren’t strong enough to hear that one little word, they probably aren’t strong enough to be in my life and I need strong people around me.

So, yeah…it won’t be leaving my vocabulary for the foreseeable future.

Because, really, this life since he died….what the fuck?!

Categories: Uncategorized

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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