Zio Loris

Cristiano and I with zio Loris and zia Ornella on our wedding day

Cristiano's uncle Loris died a year ago today. When Loris died, I was six months pregnant. He knew we were having a boy and he knew his name would be "Dylan" so in some small way it gives me solace to know that their paths crossed. Dylan stays with aunt Ornella in the mornings while I work and plays with his cousin Luana when she comes home from school. The birth of Dylan has brought great joy during this last year that has been so hard for them having lost a husband and a father.

This is what I wrote the day after Loris died last year:
"Zio Loris died yesterday. I got there just as the priest was about to perform last rites. He was 54 years old. When he was originally diagnosed with lung cancer, he was given six months to live. He lived six years. I truly believe he chose to die yesterday. After ten days on oxygen and morphine, yesterday he refused to use the oxygen tank. He literally said "basta." He was perfectly lucid to the very end. In the last few days, he was not even able to eat. This was torture for a man for whom a day without a huge bowl of pasta was "un giorno incompiuto" (an incomplete day). We took him out for Mexican once, and he tried everything we ordered and loved it. But at a certain point he said, 'This is all good but when do these Mexicans eat their primo?' For him, the primo was pasta. He couldn't imagine a meal without his beloved first course. And living without eating was not living at all for him. Selfishly, we all would have wanted him to hang on longer but for what? The morning he died, he told Ornella 'I won't live to see tomorrow,' and he was right. After so many years of being at the mercy of that horrible disease, he made a conscious decision and went to death willingly. He knew there was only greater suffering to come, and I think he wanted to spare himself and his family that. Goodbye caro zio."