Widow's Voice

Over the Edge. Maybe~

| Posted by:

5 years and 9 months into this life without Chuck, I may have,

Possibly

Gone over the edge.

It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose. 

Our world that is so critical and judgemental of how we grieve,

Those who tend to be uncomfortable with others who refuse to play the game of life their understood way…

Well, they might think I’ve gone over the edge.

Which is totally okay and cool with me.

People need to be shaken out of their complacency, in my way of thinking.

And I’m just the one to do it.

How, you ask?

Well…

In 2015 I attended my first Camp Widow.

I went to Tampa.

I’d already begun my Odyssey of Love.

Pink was very much my thing.

Also, I was already their Wednesday blogger.

But I was still devastated beyond belief and didn’t have a clue how to do this life of widowhood.

After the weekend was done, I remember telling myself that I would return to Camp Widow/Tampa one day, and present a workshop.

I continued my Odyssey of Love, and enveloped myself in more pink and ideas of how to further translate my Odyssey ran thick and fast over the years and I was still devastated and couldn’t bear living without Chuck and I grew my community around the country, opening my heart to Love every day. No matter what.

A few months ago I submitted a workshop proposal to Soaring Spirits.

In the interim, before hearing from them, I began second guessing myself, thinking that if they asked, i wouldn’t accept because…and racked up a list of reasons why I would respectfully decline the invite.

And then, last week, I got a call from them, with my workshop approved and my mind, in a nanosecond said what the fuck do you think you’re doing? Of course you’re going to go!

In the last couple months, every one of the seeds that I’ve been planting since the night Chuck died, have begun sprouting. I’m seeing healthy shoots coming out of the crazy ideas my brain has been hatching as I’ve driven the roads around America.

This is what I’ve been preparing for since the evening I stood at the end of Chuck’s hospice bed, gently touching his foot. 

Presenting at Camp Widow, guesting on podcasts, creativity rushing from me, power pulsing through me, Love guiding me…it’s what my heart was speaking to me as I stood at the foot of that hospice bed and said to Chuck I know you have to leave. I love you with all that I am. I want you to stay but I know you have to leave and I want you to know that it’s okay, even though it really isn’t. And I want to thank you for showing me how to love, through your Love for me. I know that you need to go, and I need to go do what it is that I’m supposed to do with the rest of my life. I will always love you. Always.

Chuck gave me a mission before he died. Return to our favorite places and scatter my cremains. He named 4 places for me. He knew that there were other places for me to scatter his cremains, but he could only start me out. He couldn’t do this for me. It would be up to me to recognize those other places and he knew, in order for me to know those places, I’d have to keep my heart open. In keeping my heart open, I’d hopefully learn to forge a new life without him.

Well, dude, here I am.

It’s unbearable. It’s impossibly lonely. His absence is my pulse beat. I’m more in Love with him every day. Except that he’s dead. Which matters to me not at all. So I’m in love with a dead man. Doesn’t faze me.

But, by god, I can feel the power of his left behind Love, and the energy of Love itself, fairly radiating from within me, my body barely able to contain it.

I’ve known, since I spoke those last words of Love to Chuck, that all of this is bigger than I am. This Odyssey of Love reveals itself daily. I’m not really in charge of it. My part of it is to suit up and show up.

And let Love lead the way.

I’ll see all of YOU at Camp Widow/Tampa.

Which is where I’ll reveal the reason I’ve possibly gone over the edge.

Not to you, of course. We’re all in this crazy boat together.

You’re going to love what I’m bringing with me for my workshop.

Oh, and you’ll recognize me easily.

I’ll be the one wearing a whole lotta pink~

 

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.