Widow's Voice

The Vastness of the Empty Space~

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I wonder at the vastness of this life without him…

This life of widowhood.

How do I live in such a huge space?

How do I locate myself in such a huge space?

Where do I go now, with all the questions

That have no real answers?

What do I do with the emptiness

Of that space beside me

Where he once stood with a smile and an open heart?

What do I do in this vast space that feels filled with a confusing

Mixture of emptiness that is pain but is also emptiness….is pain and I know that makes no sense but

I don’t know how else to explain it

Because we all know it really can’t be explained, can it?

What do I do when

The language I seek no longer speaks what is deep within that emptiness/pain

So I just sit and stare into..well, emptiness,

And, I regret to say, my face more than likely assumes the resting bitch look when

It is really my I’m not really here but I know I look like I am look…

Where do I go when words fail me, yet my heart and soul are filled with feelings and emotions and words must be spoken so they trip from me maybe incoherently

Or maybe in tears?

I do believe I’ve reached the point where my words become liquid

Liquid that beats from my heart to my veins through my blood to my brain where that liquid seeks to become words but words no longer suit or fit

So the words flow to my eyes and trickle or pour out depending on where I am and how I am.

But whether words or tears, whether trickling or pouring, they come from the vastness of that empty space

and become nods of oh yes I get it!  from sister and brother widows.

And a little bit of that space gets filled~ 

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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