Widow's Voice

Random Thoughts from a Disorganized Mind~

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Each morning I wake up, knowing I slept, so I’m glad for that, but not feeling rested at all. By the evening, after a day spent getting through, well, the day, I’m done in. I take melatonin when I remember and that helps sometimes.

Since my husband’s death, I’ve taken my wedding ring off entirely, along with my engagement ring, put them back on, changed from one finger to another, put on a chain around my neck, considered having them melted together into a new piece of jewelry, and every other possibility. They are currently all on my ring finger of my left hand:  my 2 rings, his one.  I’ll know what to do when the time is right to do it.

I don’t see color any longer.  I don’t even see black and white.  Life is gray.  Which saddens me greatly because I’ve always loved color.  Except for pink.  Pink is all around me.  Chuck said to mourn for him in pink because that’s very much my color.  So now its my armor.  But I don’t really see it. And I don’t feel it.

As he and I traveled this country in our 4 years of adventuring, we took thousands of pictures of where we were and of each other.  He loved taking pictures of me. I’m on the road full-time in the months since he died and I rarely take a picture.  I don’t really care what I’m seeing.  Nor are there many pictures of me any longer.  I don’t care to see how unlike me I look, with the sparkle gone from my eyes.  I do like looking at pictures of him because when I took the pictures he was alive and gazing right back at me, smiling right into my eyes.  So I can kind of, sorta, take myself back to that time.  Which is surreal because then my mind has to struggle with the jarring reality that he’s no longer here.

How does one adjust to the permanent absence of someone who brought such joy to your life, who challenged you to push your comfort zones, who loved you so much, who brought color to your life?

I’m in awe of people who partner up again after grieving the death of their husband/wife.  What kind of courage does it take to do that when you know what lies in store for you?  Unless you die first and then he/she will mourn for you.  But who would wish this on anyone?  I salute each and every one of you who has this courage.

At some point, if life happens and the right man drops down right in front of me, I’m open to the idea of loving again.  Chuck and I spoke of such a thing often and determined that we wanted whomever was left behind to find another to love.  Love is beautiful and we each believed life is made fuller by having a partner (the right partner, of course).   It will be completely weird for me though, if it happens.  I haven’t kissed a man other than Chuck for 24 years.  Wow.  Very weird to even contemplate.

My body is starving for Chuck’s touch-for our hands linked together as we walk, for his smile when he looks at me, for his kiss, for his energy next to me, for his love for me next to my love for him and for our love story to still be an active and living energy.

I’m a mess, really,  I don’t tell the world how much of a mess I am but I’m a real, emotional, mess.

So how’s your day?

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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