(Originally posted this in 2024 for Mario’s birthday. I didn’t get to really celebrate this year because I had too many client meetings that day, but am hoping to pick the tradition back up next year.)

Just about anyone who’s lost someone will tell you that birthdays of that lost person are tough. Birthdays just drive home the fact that the person is no longer here to celebrate another year of life. It makes you think about their death, yet again, but it also makes you feel like you should be doing something, because for however many years that person was in your life, you celebrated their birthday together.

All the times you come across an item and think, oh they would have loved this for a birthday gift, the next thought is always, if they were still here. There’s no more planning a fun getaway or outing, buying a cake, gathering with friends. The day comes and goes like any other plain old non-celebratory day, but with a heap of added emotions about that person not being around anymore.

May 3rd, Mario would have been 52 years old.

I think of all the birthdays we celebrated together. There were many fun times over 27 years. The last 5 or so were tougher though. It was very apparent that all of the drinking had caught up to him and the health issue were progressively getting more serious. Looking back on that last birthday, I wish I would have know it was the last one and did something bigger.

The first birthday that didn’t get celebrated came only a few short months after he died. I didn’t have much time to prepare myself for any specific emotions of that day because I was still drowning in a tidal wave.

I thought, WWMD (what would Mario do)? Well, he’d probably get up in the morning and pour another glass of wine. And so, that first birthday, I declared it should be National Day Drink a Glass of Wine Day in his honor–where everyone who knew him, or even those who didn’t, could celebrate his all too short life, by letting themselves go and sipping their favorite varietal, mid-afternoon.

This was the 5th annual Day Drink a Glass of Wine Day (can not believe it’s been that long already) and I plan to continue the tradition.

Why, you might ask, would I embrace the reason for his early demise and encourage alcohol consumption? Honestly, it’s what he would want. It’s how he chose to live, and die, for better or worse. He did give up drinking in the end, but it was far too late. I still greatly admire that he did it though, especially knowing it was too late to help. At least he had some months of sobriety to carefully review his life. At the end, he was more vocal than I was on how choosing alcohol over life was a very bad path. I vowed to never try to hide that part of his life and to be vocal about it–acknowledge it and face it head on, as Mario faced his last days totally sober. It would be somehow dishonorable to me to not talk about it, or try and hide it.

He died of liver disease, 100% caused by alcoholism. It was a long road that seemed to start on a light-hearted and fun note but got darker and darker the further he traveled down it. Five un-celebrated birthdays later and it still sucks.

So on May 3rd, remember National Day Drink a Glass of Wine Day and have one in his honor. Honor that, in the end, he knew he couldn’t go back in time and make different choices, but he also didn’t want to see anyone else make the same mistakes. Drink a glass and be grateful that you can put that glass down and go back to your life and that glass and that bottle don’t have control over you. Drink a glass and honor all those still alive who struggle and walk down that progressively darker path and hope that they find the strength within to turn around.