O'Reilly's unwitting acquaintance with the concept began on a rural Sonoma County road one misty April evening in 2004. With one of the family cars sidelined for repairs, her husband, Danny, had offered to bicycle the 30 miles to work that day.
Curly haired and 5 feet 8, the 43-year-old was a doting father with a knack for storytelling and a passion for playing Twister with his daughters, Erin and Siobhan. He remembered everyone's name, loved Halloween, played the cello and was famous for his homemade soups.
Setting out for home that April day, Danny O'Reilly was well-equipped for the ride -- with flashing safety lights, a bright yellow jacket, a helmet and a headlamp. It wasn't enough. Rounding a bend on a two-lane road at dusk, he was struck from behind by a pickup truck, his body sent flying 25 feet, over a guardrail and into a patch of weeds. He died instantly.
Late that night, Patty O'Reilly and the girls arrived home to a dark house. After tucking them in, she brushed her teeth and headed for bed, assuming Danny was there. Instead she found no sign of him, and began to fight a creeping sense of dread.
Before long, the sheriff's deputy had arrived, a priest was on the way and a man who had been driving home from a bar with a blood-alcohol level almost three times the legal limit was under arrest.
In the beginning O'Reilly would simply sit on the floor and cry. For a time, she felt crippled, her walk an awkward shuffle. Sleep was futile, disturbed by visions of Danny's body and the wheels of a truck.
The garden -- so meticulously tended by her husband -- became overrun with weeds. After friends and family stopped supplying casseroles, O'Reilly hauled the girls to local delicatessens, too shattered to cook. Her 13th wedding anniversary came and went, another agonizing reminder of the loss.
Meanwhile, William Michael Albertson, 47, pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence. With a former felony conviction on his record, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Case closed.
For a time, O'Reilly hated the man who killed her husband. She wanted the cell door slammed and never reopened. She wanted him to spend every waking moment agonizing over what he had done.
"I hated him," O'Reilly recalled. "I really thought he was the scum of the earth. Worse than scum."
Then she saw Albertson at the sentencing hearing. Clearly distraught, he wept throughout. At the end, he stood, apologized and said he hoped that someday he might be forgiven.
