I’ll never forget November 19th, 2004. We were living in NYC, it was around 10PM… I finally got William to fall asleep (he was 2 months old), and I had just crawled into bed to watch TV and try to get a little sleep before he woke up for a midnight feeding. I heard Matt’s cell phone ring and truthfully didn’t think anything of it. I heard him talking, but couldn’t quite make anything out from the bedroom. But then… then Matt walked into the bedroom, looking shocked as can be and said, “It’s Dimi…”

And I knew. He didn’t have to say anymore. His face told me everything. I’d never seen that look on his face before, and haven’t seen that look since. I don’t ever want to see that look again.

His best friend was killed in Fallujah while defending our country as a Marine on November 19, 2004… one day before Matt turned 30.

I know I’ve spoken about Dimi before on my blog, he was such a very special person in our lives. He actually helped shape our lives… actually, very much so.

My husband has been very fortunate in his lifetime to have great guy friends. He has a group from high school that he will always be close with and then he has a group from Brown. Dimi was someone he met at Brown… and just forged a close friendship with that grew over the years. I remember being so nervous to meet Dimi because I knew his “approval” of me meant a lot to Matt. From the moment I met Dimi, I just loved him. He had a gentle soul, a quick wit and was unbelievably fun to be around. After Dimi graduated he moved to NYC to take on Wall Street… after I graduated 2 years later, Matt and I ended up in NYC because Dimi was there. We had originally planned to moved to Los Angeles… but we thought it would be fun to be in the same City as Dimi for a bit.

That changed the course of our lives… we LOVED to NYC and never once thought of moving out west after that.

But I woke up this morning, and as I was making coffee I thought of the date. Tomorrow’s Matt’s 37th birthday, so I was thinking of all I needed to do to prep for it… and then I stopped for a second. I knew if tomorrow was his birthday, today was the day. And I felt so sad because we all miss him so much.

Dimi had a higher calling, and he will always, always, always be my hero.

Another way Dimi changed our lives… as soon as he passed away, we knew we wanted to celebrate life in his honor. We know our Alexander Dimitri was a gift from him… a special, beautiful gift.

And I know – somewhere – Dimi is looking down on his best friend and smiling. I know he would see Matt with 4 boys and just think it was the coolest thing in the world. Two guys who never had brothers of their own, and really filled that void for each other… I know Dimi had a little something to do with the amount of brothers in this family. 🙂

Remembering Dimi today… and always.