Widow's Voice

This Silent Companion~

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This life

This life without him

This life without his tangible Love

His eyes no longer upon me from across the room

His smile no longer beckoning me into his arms

This life

Of silence at the end of the day

Quiet all around me

Just my thoughts rolling and roiling around in my brain

And in my heart, though I’ve only realized since his death that it is possible to have thoughts in my heart as well as my brain

Yes I can and do seek out company

Friends when I can

Phone calls to family and others

But

This silence

The silence of his absence

Is not really about noise

It’s about absence

So I go and I do and I don’t do and I sit and I move and I’m still and I’m everything and I’m nothing

Until I can no longer bear the silence

And I go to bed

To sleep

A time when it is supposed to be silent

But

My brain and my heart and my mind and my soul

Spin and swirl and spiral with memories and unspoken words

Sometimes I’m driven to speak the words and the absence aloud to the quiet room

Which isn’t the same you know

So seeking to change the energy

I find  whatever anonymous no threatening music no violence no anger very placid show available on my laptop and run it continually through the night

At least it’s noise when I wake during the night, right?

Because wake I will and do

Distraction from my heart

Distraction from missing-ness

Distraction from emptiness

Until morning finally arrives and I wake again to that familiar companion…

Silence

Another 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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