Hi, baby. It’s me.

I’m sorry I haven’t written to you until now. But I know you know. I tried and I just couldn’t. My heart too broken, the pain too deep, the rage too strong. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

It’s funny. Well, not haha funny, but you know what I mean. Death and loss, as uninvited as they come, shake and strip away everything you thought you knew about life and death. I’m starting to think that no belief is 100% certain until it’s challenged. I choose to believe you’re in heaven.

Does your beautiful soul talk to God? Do you ask Him why? I still can’t make sense of this being part of the divine plan for our family. I still wonder if your soul can see us or hear us. Your absence is still so very loud in our lives. But sometimes I wonder if we’re the only ones who can hear it anymore.

We love you and we miss you so much.

So here I am, planning to celebrate your birthday for the third time without you. How stupid is that???

FUCK DEATH.

I still remember your birthday in 2023, the last one we celebrated together. I made sure to take a picture.

You looked so handsome, so good, especially for someone who had been given less than a year to live and who, almost three years later, was still living with terminal brain cancer.

I look at that picture often, trying to find signs of what was coming…

FUCK GLIOBLASTOMA.

You were always such a grinch about celebrating your birthday. Such a contradiction. You stood in front of television cameras every day, yet outside of work you deflected attention at all costs. On Facebook, which you never posted on or even scrolled through, you set your birthday to November. Hilarious.

Yet every year I’d ignore your desire to do nothing, remember? “Well, we’re celebrating you anyway!” I’d say, already making plans for June 17. Father’s Day always falls so close to your birthday that once the kids were born, it became so easy to celebrate everything you were to us. Now it just makes it a double whammy of suck.

I’d like to go to sleep and wake up next Monday, please and thank you.

A couple of days ago, as I do every year, I tried to find the least terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad moment to ask the kids in an almost believable, nonchalant way. “Heeey guuuys… do you know what Wednesday iiiisss?”

There was a pause… “What’s the date today?” our son asked. “The 15th,” I replied.

“Juneteenth!” our resident comedian girl shouted. “No, silly! That’s Friday,” I said, rolling my eyes and smiling.

“Of course we know what day it is, Mom,” said our 17 year-old. “We haven’t forgotten.” “Can we say it then? What day is it?” No takers. “Daddy’s birthday. Yes,” I said. “So what do we want to do?”

Then I caught myself wondering why we keep doing this to ourselves. We love you but we’ve come to hate this day. Is so painful. Of course, we want to celebrate you. But we’re still really mad and really hurt that you were taken from us.

“Something fun,” said the boy. “It’s summertime. We should be happy, not sad.”

They don’t want to go to the cemetery, and I get it. I know you wouldn’t judge us. I know you’d understand that it’s still too much. Maybe I’ll go for the first time. I know you’re not there, but I want to find out if going somehow helps me feel closer to you.

So we made a plan

Eli is going to school. Emilio is taking the day off. Shocker!  I’ll go to yoga, pick up our tax return, better late than never!, go grocery shopping, and then we’ll all go to Carmine’s for dinner, one of your faves, to eat celebratory, comforting Italian food. I even thought about telling the waiter we’re celebrating a birthday to get a free dessert, you know? And wondering what I’d say when they ask,

“Whose?”

“My husband’s. He’s in heaven”.

Can you imagine the look on our kids’ faces? You were supposed to be here as my partner in crime, helping me traumatize the teenagers just enough to make up for the sleep deprivation they inflicted on us as babies. Then we’d spend the ride home laughing about it, and keep laughing as we got into bed, replaying their horrified expressions until one of us couldn’t breathe and the other was snort-laughing.

I miss that so much…

Your life and your death, like yin and yang, are now woven into the very DNA of this new person I am becoming. She is still in the darkness of the womb, still being formed, still waiting to be born from the rubble.

I don’t know exactly who she will be but i know she will always carry you. And I hope, wherever you are, you’re already  so proud of her.

Baby, I love you. I miss you so much. And it is still incredibly hard to live without you.

Until next letter,

Te amo, mi cielo.

Lil’