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Widow Word~

Posted on: September 28, 2016 | Posted by: Alison Miller

W I D O W

Add an E R for the guys

W I D O W E R S

Both words mean the same thing.

Someone we loved died.

Someone we still love, died.

Gone, gone, gone

And it’s up to us, those left behind, to create new lives for ourselves.

It’s a powerful word, an ugly word to most of us.

If not all of us

It carries within its’ letters all the pain and loneliness and missing-ness of years,

Sometimes lifetimes spent together

In the immediate time after Chuck died

I hated and despised the word.

The feelings it engendered were the total and complete opposite

Of what I had been.

Wife.  I loved that word, I loved that title.

Those 4 letters carried so much joy and contentment in them.

Now my joy is a 5 letter word

I had to learn to live with those 5 letters.

I realized that in order to be a W I D O W,

I had to first be a wife. 

His wife.  Now, his W I D O W.

What made it a bit more bearable for me was to learn from another military wife that I was another category of W I D O W.

I was…I am…

The proud military widow of Chuck D.

And even though it isn’t really alright at all,

And it never ever will be.

I can say, at least, that I am that.

And it brings to mind the imagery of a part of Chuck that was the strongest part of him.

It brings to mind seeing him in uniform for the first time.

It reminds me of the honorable man he was who stood in service to his country for a span of decades.

It reminds me of his decency, his work ethic, and his perfectly rendered salute.

In this world of mine that is so painful it makes me pause and think that

Even though I would rather, much rather, be his beloved wife

I am, and always will be, his proud military widow

And when I think of it that way it controls, to some extent, the sick feeling that rises in me as I live these days and years without him

Hey, it’s the little things that get us through, right? 

                                     http://widowsvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Collage-1.jpg

Categories: Uncategorized

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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