Back in April fans of Hollywood power couple Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling celebrated as the pair welcomed their second baby girl into the world. But while the occasion was obviously a happy one, it was also touched with sadness as baby Amada was born the same week Eva buried her brother.
In a new interview with Latina magazine, the Training Day actress has described what it was like to lose her older brother Juan Carlos Mendez to throat cancer so shortly before the arrival of her daughter and explained how the experience brought her family closer together.
Eva told the mag: “Losing my brother brought our family closer, and we were already close to begin with…So to just see everybody be there for one another and show up, I feel so lucky to have them. And then they were there for me when Amada was born.”
“We had a funeral service for him and that same week I had the baby. So it was really, really intense and obviously beyond heartbreaking, but also kind of beautiful.”
During the interview, the actress also discussed how her brother’s passing influenced the choice of name she and Nice Guys star Ryan gave their newborn.
She said: “In true Latin fashion, we reuse names all the time.”
“My grandmother's name is Amada, and Esmeralda Amada is the name of our oldest. We had a few names picked out for our new baby, and when she was born, we didn't feel like those names were her.”
“So we went with Amada because it was something we kept going back to. And it was an emotional time with the passing of my brother.”
“We thought how beautiful to go with what made us emotional and with what felt like her. When we looked at her, we thought, ‘Aww, Amadita.’”
We think it's heartwarming to hear how even through her grief Eva was able to find a positive way to remember her late brother in the baby naming process.
Centre image: Getty
