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This Thing Named Grief~

Posted on: May 12, 2021 | Posted by: Alison Miller

Your loss is yours.

How you grieve the death of the person you loved is on your terms.

Nobody else’s.

It is yours.

Your timeline.

Your tears.

Your laughter…because laughter really is somehow tied up into the mixture of grief.

There is no other timeline other than your own.

There is no measuring tape for this time of yours.

There is no finish line.

There are no medals.

No prizes.

This is yours.

Your triumphs that echo on each day that you make the choice to simply swing your feet to the floor each morning.

You brushed your teeth?

Brava!

You showered?

Bravo!

You moved your body with a brief walk?

High five!

You stayed in bed with the covers drawn snugly and stared into, well, who knows what we stare into but our own souls and our own lives that feel the emptiness of absence…?

But good on you for caring for yourself on this day you stayed in bed.

Your grief is your dance with life.

It’s your dance with death.

It’s your triumphs and it is also your setbacks.

Or at least what you perceive as setbacks.

Life is filled with stumbles and awkwardness always, and grief simply exacerbates what life already is.

Your grief is yours, do you hear?

Own it.

Name it.

Dress it up with sequins and sparkle.

Dress it down with black crepe and mysterious veils.

Grief is here uninvited so bring it right in and sit it down and let it just be whatever it is.

Let nobody tell you otherwise.

Read that over and over and over again.

It. is. yours.

Own it.

And let nobody take it from you.

Or advise you how to do it.

Or judge you.

Or shame you.

You just walk with power, letting the tears that are really just liquid Love flow freely as your body releases the stress.

Grief. Love.

Love. Grief.

Where does one begin and the other end?

Let nobody diminish or remove your right to grieve how you need to grieve~

Categories: Widowed, Widowed Emotions, Military Widowed, Widowed by Illness

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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