• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Widow's Voice

Widow's Voice

  • Soaring Spirits
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Authors
    • Kelley Lynn
    • Emily Vielhauer
    • Emma Pearson
    • Kathie Neff
    • Gary Ravitz
    • Victoria Helmly
    • Lisa Begin-Kruysman

Widowed and Scary~

Posted on: December 11, 2018 | Posted by: Alison Miller

Widows scare people, I think.

Even if they (we) are ordinary in appearance.

No warts on our long noses.

No narrow, scraggly, fingers with sharp nails (for poking).

Oh, wait.

I’m describing witches.

We do (sometimes) wear black though. Like witches in the storybooks do.

And I do believe that we frighten people.

Family people and strangers people.

Because we’re (shhh, don’t tell anyone!) dark, you know.

We carry death with us.

Some of us are even (gasp!) sad.

And we talk about dead people! Our husbands and wives. Who are DEAD!

Which makes people uncomfortable.

I think, too, that we frighten people, family and strangers, because they think we might need something from them.

Maybe money.

Or we might want to live with them, so that we have a sense of connection at a time when the loneliness is overwhelming.

Maybe we can’t afford to live on our own. Because, you know, money. And because it’s too freaking expensive to live in a decent place on one salary.

It’s like we’re teenagers again, going out into the world for the first time. Living in a crappy place in a crappy, unsafe, neighborhood. A crappy, undependable car and a job we keep only to pay the bills.

We’re dating again, some of us. 

Having to play that game again. Yuck!

It’s adult teenagerhood. 

We scare people. Nothing can convince me otherwise, 5 years and 8 months in. I read the stories. I talk to other widows. I see the reactions in my own life.

Even though we go out of our way to live independently and are ardent in our efforts to show how un-needy we are, how intent on not burdening anyone…

They get nervous.

There isn’t a place for widows in our culture. In most cultures. Our culture shuns in a more civilized manner than many, possibly, but the shunning is still there.

Get over it. Get on with it. Stop talking about death. Don’t bring your darkness around me. Fake it, for my sake. Be who I want you to be, not who you are. Do this the way I think is best for you, not the way you know is best for you. 

We stand our ground as best we can, while fighting to hold off negative energy rays coming from such people.

No wonder we’re so tired.

Sometimes we cut those particular people out of our lives entirely, because we have to. 

Widows.

Scary people, right? 

Especially the ones decked out in pink~

 

 

Categories: Widowed Effect on Family/Friends

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~

TO LEAVE A COMMENT ON A BLOG, sign in to the comments section using your Facebook or Gmail accounts, or sign up for Disqus.

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Authors

SSI Network

  • Soaring Spirits International
  • Camp Widow
  • Resilience Center
  • Soaring Spirits Gala
  • Widowed Village
  • Widowed Pen Pal Program
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Contact Info

Soaring Spirits International
2828 Cochran St. #194
Simi Valley, CA 93065

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 877-671-4071

Soaring Spirits International is a 501(c)3 Corporation EIN#: 38-3787893. Soaring Spirits International provides resources with no endorsement implied.

Copyright © 2023 Widow's Voice. All Rights Reserved.