When I wake up in the morning, I hear
her. Screaming, howling, wailing, “NO!!
NO!! NOOOO!!!!!” She continues her protest through all my waking hours.
This barrage comes from a pitiful figure who lays prostrate on the ground by my
husband’s grave, her face pressed into the soil made damp by her tears. She is
utterly defeated by an all-consuming grief. Locked in a state of disbelief and unmitigated
devastation, she beats her chest as if to mold the fragments of her shattered
heart back into a functioning organ. She is my Inner Widow, and she lives in
the space somewhere between my head and heart.
