Even while I’m engaged in various activities, my mind’s eye, my heart’s eye, is searching for something that will ring a bell of recognition within me. Something that will make my heart say oh, that’s what I’ve known all along and didn’t remember I knew! That something that will ease some of the devastating ache of my soul and heart and body.
alison miller
Marriage Rings and Heart Strings
It’s a topic written about and commented upon, frequently. Little circles, made of gold or silver, encrusted with stones or plain. Maybe engraved. Little circles that symbolize so much. For such a tiny thing, they can wield so much power. Mine did. I loved being married to my husband. I loved our passion, I loved our friendship, I…
Widow Confusion
Widowhood is confusing to me. I suppose every huge life change is, for those in the midst of it. My mind whirls with thoughts of my husband’s final days, his death, leaving southern California in my rear view mirror, driving away from him, being out on the road without him…the memories, and the pain that go with those memories, are strong and…
A Step Up from Suffication
I reached a crisis point in my grief late last week. It was as if all the agony and devastation that lingers right under my skin suddenly became the surface of my skin and I felt like a wild animal that howls its’ pain to the night skies. It didn’t help that I’d been ill for almost a week, a vicious flu that tore up my body in every way possible.
This Dark Night of the Soul
This particular blog is one I don’t plan on editing or changing in any way. It’s completely raw writing from the darkness of this night that I’m in. I came in off the road not quite a week ago, right before Thanksgiving. My PinkMagic trailer is parked outside my son’s house here in Arizona. He recently moved in with his girlfriend, soon to be…
Read Patiently. There is an Actual Point
It’s turned out, for me, to be all about the hair. I didn’t intend it to play out like this; it just has. Shortly after Chuck died, I cut my hair off to the scalp. Short, short, short. First scissors then a razor. It was done in a violent manner, in a way that I hoped would allow me to release some of the devastating pain of his forever…
The Road Well Traveled
My daughter and I are nearing the end of our 6 month road adventure. It will be the end of this particular segment of my Odyssey of Love. But it doesn’t end in Arizona when I drop her off. I’m going to take a one month break off the road, visit with my son and grand-daughter, meet my son’s girlfriend and her daughter (I’m really looking…
On This Day
I don’t know what makes one day, one moment, more impossible than another. Grief is just that way. For me, it isn’t a matter of grief suddenly showing itself; it’s more a matter of at any one moment I’m better able to keep it under my skin as opposed to right on top. It isn’t less or more than; it’s just under or on top of. Today,…
Next and Next and Stop
Mostly, I stay in the here and now. Who can bear to even imagine 24 hours from now? So I focus my eyes right in front of me, the next step, the next mile. 18 months and a couple weeks since Chuck’s death and I still look down at my feet to see where they are and I stay there. Mostly. I’m in Key West right now, with my daughter, as I…
Questions
Sometimes, when I allow myself to think of my nebulous future, and whether I’ll ever have a man in my life to love again, and be loved by, I think maybe I’ve had my love story and that’s the end of that. After all, I can’t be greedy, can I? Many people don’t have their love story even once. I had 24 years of a love affair marriage-how can I…
What Time Means. And Doesn’t
Today marks 18 months since my husband died. One and a half years. Forever. He was in the Air Force and often went TDY (temporary duty) in our first years together and mostly I didn’t know where he was during those times and would watch the news to maybe figure it out. But he was never gone for more than a few weeks at a time and then he’d be…
Cadence Count
Moving through grief is similar to moving through deep, dark mud and muck. Lifting your feet to take another step forward takes every bit of determination and strength. Sometimes you look down and you can’t even see your feet, never mind lift them to take that step. When you do lift them, they are covered with mud to the point of not being…