When I heard the news this morning that the Cubs/Cardinals game was being postponed, I just thought it odd. It was too early to postpone it because of weather. If only it was being pushed back due to a rainstorm.

This morning, at approximately 12:35 am, Josh Hancock was killed in a car accident. He was only 29. That's the same age Pablo was.

After Pablo died, I didn't know what the expect when the following baseball season started. I became a baseball fan because of him, but became a die hard on my own. Even though I missed him dearly while watching games, I was able to lose myself in the sport I loved - even if for only three hours.

While watching baseball, only what was between the white chalk lines mattered - death didn't even come into the equation on the grass and dirt of the baseball diamond.

But when things like this happen, you're reminded that these are real people playing these game. Real human beings and not just a pile of statistics. While we only see innings pitched, ERA and various other numbers, these people are the world to their friends and families. Josh Hancock was someone's son, someone's brother, someone's friend.

I mourn the loss of another young man cut down in the prime of his youth, and offer my humble condolences to his friends and family.

I saw a sign yesterday and it's had me thinking since I saw it. It's nothing special, just a VW ad, with the phrase: "Dare to be happy."

I think that might be my problem. I can't let myself be happy.

After The Accident, I bought every book I could get my hands on that even mentioned grief and widows/ers. I must have read about 20 different books. I felt an insatiable need to educate myself on all those feelings churning right under the surface. And I mostly did.

I remember reading about survivors' guilt, where widows/ers felt guilty about living their lives to the fullest after their partners had passed. This could happen for a variety of reasons: perhaps the widow/er was driving the car in the fatal crash, perhaps the widow/er feels he/she should've prevented the accident or foreseen the sickness, perhaps even the widow/er feels that he/she should've been the one to die. (This is, at best, a simplistic explanation of survivors' guilt.)

I always promised myself that I wouldn't do that. Since I now knew about it, I would know to banish those thoughts once they invaded my mind, I would say to myself.

Ha ha. If only it were that easy.

Now, I'm wrestling with myself - part of me desparately wants to be happy again. Another part of me (in the subconcious) believes I have no right to such happiness. How could I when my husband is dead? It's silly, I know, but such are feelings.

Dare to be happy. Such a simple concept, and yet so difficult to actually carry out.

Like the rest of the country, I watched in horror as the massacre at Virginia Tech. unfolded. My thoughts immediately went to the parents of the students. You ship your child off to college, assuming they're going to be safe from most everything - you never expect to hear that a crazed gunman killed 32.

I can't even begin to imagine the pain those parents are going through. Reading through a list of the victims last night, I saw that there were several people who left behind spouses. I can understand with them a little more the feeling of seeing your spouse go off to work, and then finding out that they are never coming home.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the entire VT community.

I started this blog partly to get out some of the darker feelings, and partly to see the progress I've made as the months go by. Since it's been pretty dark around here lately, let's lighten up things a bit.

I saw a really nice sign recently: "Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly." It may sounds trite, but I think it's a lovely sentiment. There are moments when I do feel as if my world is over. I always lived life "on hold" - I'll do things after I graduate, I kept telling myself. And then, 8 months after I graduate, my world collapses around me. I feel as if I've been put on hold again.

But more and more lately, I've felt as if I might just be turning into a butterfly, excuse the corniness. I feel parts of my world brightening. I know that the dark days aren't gone - they'll never really be gone. But I feel hope surround me, and the darkness no longer shuts it out.

I just stumbled onto a site for "sports widows". Does it make me petty that I instantly became incensed? I can't believe someone could benignly call herself a widow just because her significant other watches sports. You know what, I'm a REAL WIDOW, and my husband ain't coming back after no game. Think about people who have really lost someone and think about that next time your husband wants to play a little golf, or your wife wants to go shopping.

I’m on a plane back to Jersey, and I’m just glad I made it through the weekend. The effects of the copious amounts of alcohol I drank were nothing compared to the heart-wrenching time at the wedding. I am so happy for my friends; they are great people, and deserve the joy they are experiencing now. It’s just so difficult to be at a wedding, and see happy couples everywhere. It’s so odd how you can be in a room full of people, and yet feel so utterly alone. I think the hardest part was definitely the ceremony. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I went through that exact same ceremony less than four years ago. At least they didn’t use the “till death do us part” line. I think if I ever marry again, I’ll definitely use “as long as we both shall live” instead. I like that better. The candle portion of the ceremony was also incredibly touching, since we did that as well. I don’t understand why our candle had to be snuffed out so early. 18 short months we were married. It seems like a lifetime ago.

I of course couldn’t help but remember my memories of that day. It was so wonderful, and he was great. We were deliriously happy, obliviously ignorant of the realities of life. I look back at that me in pity. I was so innocent. The day Pablo died, I think the scales dropped from my eyes. I always believed that if you lived a good life, you’d be rewarded. If that’s the case, then what contest in hell did I win?! I have come to understand that that’s clearly not the case, that the world operates in a random matter. I have to believe this, or else I’ll go crazy, seeing people I know who don’t appreciate what they have.

I hate that the bitterness is creeping in, that I’ve become cynical and jaded. I want to get better, and enjoy the rest of my life, since I expect to be here awhile, but it’s hard. It’s so fucking hard. It takes everything I have to maintain this thin veneer of normalcy I show to the world. Yeah, I look like an ordinary 28 year old. But I’m so cracked, so damaged, and I’m so scared of letting any of that out, lest I become a nutcase. It’s such a thin line that I walk everyday.

Dammit. I've been avoiding this.

Several weeks ago, Baby Girl and I, while in Florida, went to Disney World. Wow, that was fucking depressing. Everywhere I turned, there were happy little families, parental units intact. How do I explain to Baby Girl that we're different? That there's no daddy in our little unit? It hurt so much seeing all these shiny, happy people snapping their pictures and knowing that I should have that also, that I would have had it, if only a fucking valve had worked appropriately on that day.

However, as hard as that was, I at least was free of (mostly all) the ghosts. We had been to Florida together once, when we were newly engaged, but the Florida of those days is very different than the one I just visited. Back then, we slept all morning, and spent the day hanging out till it was time to the hit the clubs. Now, running after Baby Girl took up most of my waking hours. Between that, we managed to go to Sea World, and catch a few ball games. But at least my mind was calm for those few hours.

My mind wasn't calm, though, at Baby Girl's 2nd bday party. First of all, doing mostly everything myself is a drag. There were so many errands I could have used him for. But beyond that, I really could have used him in the pictures, chasing after her, entertaining our guests, serving as the buffer between his family and myself, and basically basking in the glow of his daughter's 2nd bday party, like I know he would have.