green from top

to bottom,

except for a

little bit of blue

in the middle.

the colors familiar

but blurred

by distance.

the movements,

(reanimated)

unseen, avoided.

until now.

(paused).

the smile,

the same one

i see everyday

but not.

(still paused).

i remember this

moment like i was

actually there and

now,

almost 12 years later,

i am.

watching it

as it happened, like

i’ve stumbled into

that alternate dimension

the scientists

were talking to

me about when

i couldn’t sleep.

i’ve been there

since, without

you.

it’s familiar but not,

the trees are gone

and they’re

not the only thing,

but seeing you move…

…

and then i tried

to remember why this

was the first time

i had seen it,

why i missed it

all those years ago.

and then i remembered

why, and i remembered

that photo of us

a few days later,

when i was dressed

in black and you

looked proud, and

i was surprised i had

made it.

the memories,

the photos,

and now…

after almost four

years of static moments,

captured and saved,

viewed and shared,

i saw you move…

and now i can’t.

(i wrote the following for a blog called widow’s voice, a blog primarily for widowed people. i thought i’d post it here just because).

that’s a question

i used to get asked

a lot in my previous life,

(you know, the one before my wife died)

it was either preceded by,

or sometimes followed by,

“what do you do?”

in my current life,

it matters less where

i’m from & what i do…

what’s more important,

especially to others

like me

are questions like,

“what happened?”

or

“how did you get here?”

and

“how long has it been?”

it’s weird for me

to consider that

the questions that

used to be normal

parts of a

“getting to know you” conversation

are now asked as an

afterthought, or aren’t

asked at all.

…

that got me to thinking

about how unimportant

our location is

in all of this.

of course

there are many significant

differences for widows/ers

in different places,

(including how some of us are supported both emotionally and financially after the death of our partners, among many other things)

but where we’re located

is less important

in this community

than our personal stories

of love, death, happiness, sadness

and all that follows.

and the differences that

naturally exist between

us because of

where we’re from

(which is a huge part of who we are)

dissolve pretty quickly

when there’s a unifying

force in our

lives like death.

and as much as it

sucks that we

all have this,

the death of a partner,

as such a huge

and defining

part of our lives,

it’s pretty fucking awesome

that we have each other,

no matter where

we’re from…