Widow's Voice

Unanswered Questions, and Other Stuff~

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I guess one of the fallouts of living in the widow hood, is that we end up in our heads way too frequently, asking questions of ourselves, and of life, about life, ruminating on life in general.

The inside of my brain is a continual hamster wheel.

These are some of the things I wonder, the questions I ask, of myself.  Mostly rhetorically, because as soon as I find one answer, I ask another question within that answer.

I read a post the other day about a friend’s mom getting the excellent prognosis that her cancer was gone. She was cancer free.

That feeling of elation that comes with that prognosis; I remember it well, following Chuck’s final CAT scan, after his first cancer and the endless surgeries and radiation treatments. I breathed again, fully, for the first time since learning that he had cancer.

What I didn’t grasp, couldn’t grasp, in the responses following this post was that, even while understanding that the first response was from a person of faith, was reading, Praise Jesus, thank you, Jesus!

Does Jesus, or God, sit up there in Heaven, saying well, that one prayed enough so zap! their person is cured but nope! that one didn’t, so, sorry, bud, no go your cancer continues on til it kills you.

That’s always my reaction when I read stuff tying recovery to god, anyways.

Death, and grief, can make you a better person than you were before. It can make you more compassionate, kinder, etc etc etc. It makes you pay more attention.  You don’t take as much for granted, etc etc etc…

I get this picture in my mind of horrible people walking around, B.D. (before death), barreling through life, heedless and inattentive to those around them, including their person and other loved ones, being mean to others, petty, etc etc etc…

I guess there are people who do glide through life with no awareness of self or those they love, or strangers along their way, and then their person dies and they think oh, shit! I need to pay attention now! I need to be compassionate, aware, conscious, etc etc etc…

I read about stuff like this, and think wait a minute! I lived consciously! I was aware! I didn’t take him for granted! I told him every damn day that I loved him, that I felt cherished by him, that he mattered to me and my life! And I showed him in my actions!  I was already compassionate to others, already kind to those around me and those I met throughout my days! So…What. The. Fuck. 

It’s at times such as this that, if I didn’t live life consciously and aware, knowing that life just happens and that shit happens, I might get that nib of a thought in my head that I’m being punished for something.

Fortunately, I do realize it’s all just life and a roll of the dice and there isn’t some Deity in the sky fucking us up down here, with fateful decisions for our lives. I’m glad I don’t live with any regrets about not paying attention to what I had with Chuck.

Mostly, what I’ve learned from his death, is that life can suck big time, but it isn’t personal; it’s just life, and you get through it the best you can and you grab Love when you can, and you don’t wait for anything.  But, also…

I knew that shit before he died.

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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