Widow's Voice

Time. And love.

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Time means nothing and it means everything since my husband died.  My heart beats its’ rhythm.  It plods and it races and jumps and bumps and shatters and breaks and leaps and is subtle and loud.  All at the same time sometimes.

In one month it will be one year since he died.

I turned 56 two months after he died.  When people ask me I always say I’m 55, not because I have an issue with my age but because time became meaningless after his death.  In our years together we celebrated three days; our birthdays and our anniversary. Those two separate days that brought us into this world so that we could have that one day each year to celebrate our lives together.  We were each other’s gift and we celebrated that passionately.

The night of the day that I took him to the ER and he was admitted to the hospital with a huge tumor in his left lung and the bottom 3rd of his right lung collapsed and non-functioning from the weight of another tumor, the admitting nurse told me, when I begged him for some idea of what we were facing, that he estimated, based on his experience, that Chuck had three weeks to live.

He was right.  Almost to the day.

Time is so subjective, isn’t it? 

It has plodded by in an excruciating way since last April 21 and yet, it will soon be a year and how is that possible?  In the 24 years we were together we have never been apart for such a long period of time and it is inconceivable to me that I have to live the rest of my life without him.  A concept which I can’t bear to face. 

For as much as I lived in the moments with him, I’m living now in the moments without him.  It is the here and now, with absolutely no idea or expectation of what tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow might bring me, good or bad.  Which is freeing.  I have no attachment to what might be and no attachment, honestly, to this present moment.  It just is and I’m okay with that.

Sometimes we just hang onto time by the bloodied tips of our fingers.  Sometimes we let go and fall and fear can take over.  But sometimes there can be freedom in falling and floating and feeling nothing and everything all at once and knowing we aren’t in charge and time is going to happen and things are going to happen in that time and really, none of it is our business in so many ways.

All I know is that he loved me deeply and I loved him and that’s bigger than time past or present will ever be. 

Time gifted me with 24 years of love.  Love was my past and love is carrying me through my present and revealing itself more each day and love will take me into my future and is the only thing that is real to me.

Time isn’t important in the scheme of life.  Only love is.  I had it with Chuck and I’m breathing it in and holding it close and opening up to more and trusting in its’ continued being in my life.

And sending it out into the Universe~

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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