Sometimes, when a loved one passes, in their place they leave the gift of new life.
Eva Mendes experienced this in May, when she suffered the loss of her older brother, Carlos, then gave birth to her second child, a girl just days later.
“Losing my brother brought our family closer, and we were already close to begin with,” Mendes told the September issue of Latina.
“So to just see everybody be there for one another and show up, I feel so lucky to have them.”
They were right next to the actress for significant moment, when she had daughter Amada (dad is Mendes’ partner, Ryan Gosling).
“We had a funeral service for [Carlos] and that same week I had the baby. So it was really, really intense and obviously beyond heartbreaking, but also kind of beautiful.”
Understandably, Mendes isn’t at the point where she’s let such an extreme high and an extreme low sink in.
“Being totally honest, I don’t feel like I’ve really processed that yet.”
Mendes, 42 and Gosling are already parents to Esmerelda, 22 months.
The couple selected the name Amanda for the newborn after Mendes’ grandmother.
“It was an emotional time with the passing of my brother,” Mendes recalled. “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.’”
Though she will star in 2017’s Fast 8, Mendes is putting the focus on motherhood at the moment.
“Right now it’s really about surviving those nights and trying to enjoy this time as much as possible with them, and start the bond between Esmeralda and Amada.”
Mendes realizes how lucky she is to be selective when it comes to work.
“Right now I feel very fortunate to be home with my kids. I feel so lucky, and I’m just taking advantage of that,” she said.
