Steve:

Thank you for your comment and nice wishes. I would not say this part of my life (the grieving part) has become any less significant. Some things are better, some things hurt the same, some hurt more. My lack of posts is more due to an overwhelmed mental state that I feel. I have a thousand thoughts during a day stuff to write about, but obviously I am with at least one of my children most of every day, and so when it comes time at night to post, I feel like I don't want to relive whatever thoughts I have had that day again. It's weird, and hard to explain.

Ironically, recently I have gone through some hard weeks in my own head.....a lot of what I would call mental anguish. I'm sure I've said before on this blog that I feel like I battle two things....the grief of the loss of my husband and my children's father (obviously a huge thing), and the traumatic thoughts/memories of the day it happened. What happens is that out of nowhere I'll have a traumatic thought come into my head and the only way that I can describe it is to say that it affects my mood and how I relate to everything around me at that time. After I have relived the memory to some degree, and as quickly as possible talked myself out of it ("think of something else"), I fall into a black hole of despair and then I go about my day, trying to crawl back out of that hole. Until I feel normal again....it's a process.....and a battle, and it's generally unrecognizable to most people around me.

Ugh, it sounds awful written down. But that's the best way I can describe how I feel. It all happens behind the conversations and smiles and "stuff" that makes up my days. But behind the scenes it's me against my memory and thoughts.

On the brighter side of things, I can see some changes in other areas that are becoming more consistent in my life. It used to be that Joe was on my mind pretty much every moment, everything that happened I thought about in terms of him not being here to experience. What he didn't see, what he didn't hear, what he was missing, what he should be doing, etc. This provided me with a constant simultaneous joy/pain type of scenario. I would say that I still have that scenario present, but it is now more delayed. The best way to describe it is to give an example.

On Monday Luke got his first hit of the baseball season. He's had 3 or 4 games and every time he improves in some little way that probably only his mother sees. So Luke was up at bat and had two strikes and the ball was pitched and I thought "Pleeeeeeeease, just let this kid connect with the ball" and -CRACK-, he did! It was a beautiful sound that I am sure all parents of little ball players can relate to. Luke watched the ball fly high into the air..........and then.......into a player's glove. It was caught, but it didn't matter...Luke's eyes turned straight to me for a few seconds before he ran back to the dugout and the pride on his face was priceless. It was a great moment, a stepping stone in his baseball life.

A year ago I would have been experiencing that whole thing through Joe's eyes. Joy of what was happening and pain that Luke's father can not see him in what he was doing, all at the same time. When it happened on Monday I experienced it on my own, through my own eyes and I felt joy and pride by itself. It was later that the pain set in of what was missing in the picture. Still deep pain and sadness and it hurts no less than it ever has. But the pain is becoming separate, which I believe is a step forward in some small way.