"where are you from?"

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

(like us),

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...

(also, this is my last post for the widow's voice blog. it's time for another voice to take my place, a voice that needs to be heard, a voice that happens to be from australia. please welcome amanda each thursday as she shares her life with you. and thanks for reading my ramblings over the years. the comments you've left for me have helped me immensely, and i can only hope that my words have had even a nominal impact on you. more importantly, i hope that the writing you've read by all of the writers on this blog has made you feel less alone as you navigate through the life you never wanted. i encourage all of you to write down your thoughts, even if no one else ever reads them. writing has helped me more than i ever could have imagined, and i'm pretty sure it can do the same for you).