Widow's Voice

Your Death, My Amnesia

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You exist in my world in all the ways you existed when you breathed the air that I breathed.

And none of them.

Your image is finally strong again in my mind and heart.

I didn’t remember it for almost 5 years.

I didn’t feel you.

I didn’t see you.

You disappeared from me that night you took your last breath.

The night I took my last breath, in so many ways.

It was as if I had sudden amnesia.

Memories….gone.

You…gone.

What had it felt like to be held by you?

Kissed by you?

To have you hold my hand?

Had you been real those 24 years?

Or were you a figment of my imagination?

You were so fucking gone

I remembered nothing.

Shocking, instantaneous amnesia.

Your body still lying there on that bed,

And I suddenly didn’t know if you’d ever really existed.

If we’d ever really existed.

That thought was as devastating as your death.

Where had I been for those 24 years, if not by your side?

I attempted to voice these thoughts over the following years,

Only to be told that he’s with you, he’s watching over you…

They didn’t realize the strain that caused my heart and mind.

Why did they know that, when they hadn’t known you as I’d known you,

And I didn’t?

Silent agony torched the filaments of my soul each time I heard those words,

As my mind tortured itself, striving to remember all the moments we’d lived

In all the years we’d had.

Doubting myself, doubting us, doubting my sanity,

Where were you?

Now, having sensed or felt or seen or experienced you,

Your Love for me, pouring and shimmering and showering upon me,

Through me into the furthest regions of my heart,

Even less do I want to hear others say see? He was there it was you you just weren’t ready…

On and on.

Because, it isn’t theirs to say…anything.

This is mine to experience and it matters not, as it didn’t matter then, what others think,

This is mine to know,

Because, my dearest, my most beloved husband, my lover, my Universe and my stars, my all, your all…

All that we were, all that we are now, though you be forever gone from my sight,

You are my experience to have and to hold in my heart and soul.

You are my beloved. I am yours.

This is enough for me.

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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