Why must I be... let's just not go there

Today's Recent Widower Review of Dion and the Blemonts' "Why Must I Be a Teenager in Love" has been cancelled due to a complete lack of sympathy for the plight of the singer.  Being about 30 years older and having a wife recently die will do that to you.  But for those that really want to see it anyway, here it is:

¿Como te voy olvidar cuando no puedo?

Translation: ¿How can I forget you when I cannot?

Although this Recent Widower's Review includes another foray into my translating Spanish into English, my task should run a bit smoother as I won't have to decipher my wife's handwriting and spelling as well.  However, I will slightly change the format a little.

The song starts with repeating amor six times and although the word is literally translated as "love", a better translation in context would be "my love" since it's addressed to a person.  Note: count on hearing/reading this word a lot throughout the song.  Note the second: that certain describes my wife.
Even though the next line ("Quiero que me vuelvan a mirar tus ojos") is grammatically correct Spanish, it still causes difficulties for online translators because "in Spanish, changes in the word order can be heard in everyday conversation or seen frequently in everyday writing such as that found in newspapers and magazines."  Google, for example, bungles it completely as "I want you to look into your eyes again" by completely ignoring the "me".  Bing's rendering of the sentence as "I want to get me to look at your eyes" is a bit closer, yet confuses the object and subject.  However, in this sentence, it is the verb that determines the object rather than word order.  In other words, since "vuelvan" is third person plural, the subject has to be a third person noun- and the only noun that fits that description is "tus ojos".  It is easy to understand why the song writer chose this particular word order (i.e., he needed a rhyme for "rojos"), but placing the two "misplaced" subject in the normative spot before the verb (i.e., "Quiero que tus ojos [subject] me [object] vuelvan [verb] a mirar") fixes the translation problem for both Google and Bing: "I want your eyes to look at me again".  Unfortunately, something that is no longer possible for my wife.
After another couple of lines of thrice-repeated "amor", we come to "Quiero volver a besar tus labios rojos", which Google inexplicably translated as "I never want to kiss your red lips".  Bing wins another round almost by default with a closer-but-still-no-cigar "I want to kiss your red lips", since it omits that pesky "volver a".  Including a translation for those two words would make it "I want to go back/return to kiss (or kissing) your red lips".  Yet another nonviable option in regards to my deceased wife.
The next four lines also contain several pitfalls for translation.  Not only do lines one and two (Comó no acordarme de ti and De que manera olvidarte; literally, "How not to remember to me of you" and "Of what way to forget you"), for example, contain infinite verbs and omit a subject altogether, but they build on each other: "How can I not remember you/ In what way can I forget you / If everything reminds me of you ('Si todo me recuerda a ti')/ [and] You are ('estás tú') everywhere ('En todas partes')?".  More on this after the rest of the song.
The singer then goes on to mention a couple of places where "you" are ("estás tú" or just "estás"): a rose and (literally) "to breathe", i.e., "act of breathing".  I haven't seen my wife in any roses, but then again, I haven't looked at many roses since her death other than those that someone (probably one of her daughters or sisters) brought to her final viewing.  As for seeing her in the act of breathing, that comes and goes.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
This is followed by the repeated line "How will I forget you?" (Como te voy a olvidar), which will also repeat twice after the next two lines.  The next two places the singer finds "you" is in "kissing the cross" ("besando la cruz") and praying a prayer ("rezando una oracion"), both which carry a religious significance, the first of which (i.e., kissing the cross) I do not participate in and the second of which I would attach only to the love of God and not another person, up to and including my wife.
Now we come to the only part of the song that isn't repeated again:
Si te clavaste aqui en mi corazon (If you have embedded yourself here in my heart)
Y mi amor, has llenado mi alma (And my love, you have filled my soul)
Y tu sangre corre por mis venas (And your blood runs in my veins)
Y mi sangre me hace estremecer (And my blood makes me shake/tremble)
Yo contigo (I with you)
All I can say about this part is I guess it's supposed to be romantic... and maybe it is and I just have poor taste in judging whether something is romantic or not.

I just learned how to change the cover photo on my Google+ profile

Words cannot describe how beautiful she is to me.  And the emotions every time I see it: love, pain, joy, sorrow, blessedness, betrayal (how dare she leave me alone?), and too many more to sort them all out.  Then there are the questions to which I do not know the answer.  I have to restrain myself from punching the monitor so that I no longer can see it while at the same time wanting to linger on it, caressing the image of her face (why can't it be the real thing?).
I hope that no one reading this is bothered by my remembering this Memorial Day someone who fell in the battle against cancer.  I didn't plan it this way, it just happened.

Suffering from PWRD

I don't know how prevalent Phantom Wedding Ring Disorder¹ or even if anyone other than myself suffers from it.  I do, however, know that in my case that is altogether too real.  After growing accustomed to almost sixteen years of brushing my thumb against my wedding ring to check that it was still there, it is now gone from the fourth digit of my left hand.  And even the knowledge that it's gone (and why) doesn't stop me from rechecking- just in case I misrembered or dreamt both the real and symbolic reasons for its absence.  But what can one do when she's gone from one's life, but not from one's heart?

¹ I was going to call it "Phantom Ring Syndrome" before learning that name is already taken for an entirely different malady.

I just saw my (dead) wife

After I got off the bus at Crenshaw Avenue and Hyde Park Boulevard (hollow black dot on the map of Los Angeles, CA above) and crossed the street while returning home from work around 6:15 this morning, my eyes beheld the vision of my wife rounding the corner of South Victoria Avenue (hollow light gray dot to its left; the black circle with the dot was close to my destination) and heading towards me. Yet, inexplicably, as we approached, the woman I identified simply by her hairstyle slowly and agonizingly transformed into a complete stranger who I doubt I had ever seen before and appeared almost nothing like who I originally thought she was.
Silly, stupid, foolishly desperate me.

It's the End of the World As We Know It And I (Mostly) Feel Fine

Welcome to the first installment of recent widower's reviews, where I (the recent widower in question) look at some songs and possibly other media that relate- however remotely- to how I feel since my wife's death.
It should become a semi-regular feature on this blog since it's easy to do (except when I'm using it as a dual-purpose post, like this one) and I need filler from time to time.  So let's get to it.

It's the End of the World As We Know It And I (Mostly) Feel Fine

Welcome to the first installment of recent widower's reviews, where I (the recent widower in question) look at some songs and possibly other media that relate- however remotely- to how I feel since my wife's death.
It should become a semi-regular feature on this blog since it's easy to do (except when I'm using it as a dual-purpose post, like this one) and I need filler from time to time.  So let's get to it.