I still mother them….

That belongs right at the heart of it. Especially because the chicken cutlets aren’t just a similarity anymore. They are one of those little threads between Gianna and the uncle who absolutely adored her. And I think you meant “I wish he had lived to see her turn 18.” I wove that in without letting the grief swallow the birthday.

On the Eve of 18

Tomorrow, Gianna turns 18.

And I really don’t know how the hell that happened.

She was the first baby I ever watched being born. I watched her come into this world, and before anybody else got their turn, they put her in my arms.

She was the first baby I ever held.

Me. Her Nonna.

There are moments in your life you remember, and then there are moments that somehow live inside you forever. That is one of mine.

Even her name carries a piece of our family with her.

For generations, the women in our family shared the middle name Anne. My middle name is Anne, and Gabriella’s was Anne too. But when Gabriella had Gianna, she broke our little Anne tradition and gave her the middle name Elizabeth instead.

Elizabeth was my mother’s name. Gianna’s great-grandmother.

So she became Gianna Elizabeth.

The first baby I ever watched being born. The first baby I ever held. And she came into this world carrying my mother’s name.

Somewhere along the way, she also became what I have called her for as long as I can remember.

My best girl.

And tomorrow my best girl is 18.

Tonight my mind keeps flipping through all the different versions of her I have been lucky enough to love.

The tea parties. Dear God, the tea parties.

Every conceivable piece of pretend food and every tea set she owned somehow spread across my entire bed. There was apparently no such thing as a small tea party in Gianna’s world. If we were doing it, we were feeding half of Delaware.

My girl who loves chicken cutlets just like her Uncle Vincent did and homemade pasta.

And her Uncle Vincent.

She was his favorite person in the entire universe.

There was absolutely no hiding it. He adored that little girl.

When she was little, we used to tease him that Gianna wasn’t going to be allowed to date until she was 100 years old. That seemed perfectly reasonable to Uncle Vincent. 😂

I wish so much that he had lived to see her turn 18.

I wish he could see the young woman that little girl became.

And I can only imagine what he would have to say about the fact that she is now officially old enough to date without asking anybody’s permission. I’m pretty sure 18 would still be about 82 years too early for him.

Those are the things that make me smile and hurt at the same time.

Because he loved her so damn much.

And she loved him.

Maybe that’s why something as simple as watching her love chicken cutlets like he did can hit me right in the heart. Little pieces of the people we love have a funny way of staying with us.

Then there are all the other pieces of my best girl.

Her love of spicy food and the absolute joy she gets out of teasing her Nonna because I am such a baby about it. 😂

Trips to California.

Vacations.

Beach days.

Pool days.

So many completely ordinary days that I didn’t know at the time would become some of the memories I treasure the most.

Because that’s the thing about 18 years.

You remember the big moments, but when you look back, you realize how much of a life is made up of the little ones.

And then there were the moments that changed everything.

When Vincent died, Gianna saved me.

I don’t know if she will ever completely understand that.

She had lost the uncle who thought she hung the moon, and somehow this little girl was helping me survive losing my son.

There were days when I truly didn’t know how I was supposed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Losing Vincent changed everything about me. There is the person you were before that kind of loss and then there is the person you somehow have to figure out how to become afterward.

And through those days, there was Gianna.

She gave me a reason to get up.

A reason to keep moving.

A reason to laugh on days when I thought I had forgotten how.

And she noticed me.

I will never forget one day when she was 12 years old.

I was having a really bad day. I don’t even remember if I told her how bad it was.

But she knew.

So this 12-year-old little girl walked herself to Walgreens and came back with a Butterfinger and a root beer.

My two favorite things.

It sounds like such a little thing.

It wasn’t.

At 12 years old, she knew she couldn’t fix what was hurting her Nonna. She couldn’t take my grief away.

So she did what she could.

She brought me a Butterfinger and a root beer.

I have never forgotten that.

That’s my Gianna.

That’s my best girl.

And now, before she has even reached her 18th birthday, life has asked her to carry another kind of grief that I would have given anything to protect her from.

This year she lost her mom.

I lost my Gabriella.

And there really aren’t words for what it feels like knowing Gabriella isn’t here to watch her daughter turn 18.

I wish her mom was here.

I wish Uncle Vincent was here.

I wish they both got to see the young woman she has become.

There are things I wish I could change for Gianna. Things I wish I could take away from her. Things I wish she never had to know. Things I wish loving somebody enough could somehow fix.

But I can’t.

What I can do is what I have done since the first seconds of her life.

Love her.

Through every single version of herself.

Through tea parties that took over my bed.

Through chicken cutlets and homemade pasta.

Through Uncle Vincent declaring that dating could begin somewhere around her 100th birthday.

Through spicy food while she laughs at her Nonna for being such a baby.

Through California trips and vacations.

Through beach days and pool days.

Through Butterfingers and root beer.

Through laughter and tears and growing pains and grief.

Through all the beautiful, messy, ordinary and extraordinary life that has happened in between.

Tomorrow, the first baby I ever watched being born becomes an adult.

The first baby I ever held.

The baby I got to hold before anybody else in the world got their turn.

Eighteen.

How the hell did we get here so fast?

Tonight I keep going back to that very first moment.

Before the tea parties.

Before California.

Before chicken cutlets and homemade pasta.

Before spicy food and her teasing me.

Before beach days and pool days.

Before the Butterfinger and root beer.

Before we knew how much we would lose.

Before either one of us had any idea just how much life we would walk through together.

There was just this brand-new little baby being placed in my arms.

Gianna Elizabeth.

My mother’s name carried into another generation.

And me, her Nonna, getting to hold her first.

I knew I loved her.

What I couldn’t possibly have known was everything that little girl would become to me.

I didn’t know how much she would make me laugh.

I didn’t know how many memories we would make.

I didn’t know she would become Uncle Vincent’s favorite person in the entire universe.

I didn’t know that after losing him, she would help carry me through one of the darkest times of my life.

And I certainly didn’t know that before she turned 18, we would have to figure out how to walk through life without her mom too.

Tomorrow she is 18.

My first grandbaby.

My Gianna Elizabeth.

The little girl who carries my mother’s name.

Vincent’s favorite person in the entire universe.

The little girl who helped save me after I lost him.

The girl who has walked through more than I ever wanted her to have to walk through.

And the young woman who still has so much life ahead of her.

Gianna, I wish your mom was here to see this birthday.

I wish your Uncle Vincent was here reminding everyone that 18 is absolutely NOT 100 and therefore you are still not allowed to date. 😂

I wish they could both see you.

But I hope you know how incredibly loved you have been every single day of these 18 years.

Eighteen years ago, I was the first person to hold you.

What I didn’t know then was how many times over the next 18 years you would hold me up.

Happy 18th birthday, Gianna Elizabeth.

I loved you before anyone else even got their turn to hold you.

I have loved every single version of you since.

And wherever this next part of your life takes you, I hope you always know exactly where you can land.

With your Nonna.

Because you were my best girl when they first put you in my arms.

You were my best girl through every single year in between.

And no matter how grown you get, no matter where life takes you, and no matter how many birthdays I am lucky enough to watch you celebrate…

you will forever be

my best girl. ❤️