Dear Son, it Has Been a Year Since you Entered Eternity

Note for the reader: A year ago, our son, Gabriel Augustine, was born and died. On October 24, 2025, he was born and subsequently passed away within hours. We knew he had a genetic condition, Trisomy-13, that would not let him survive, so the fact that he passed away was not a surprise. Nevertheless, having him and losing him is the hardest thing my wife and I — not to mention our children — have ever experienced. I baptized him in the operating room, and Father was there to give him the Sacrament of Confirmation soon after. He spent his short earthly sojourn surrounded by his family, and we love him as much today as we did then. Catholics should understand that we believe that baptism saves, and because of this, he went straight to Heaven, having been cleansed of Original Sin, shortly before breathing his last. He is our family Saint, and we miss him. There are perhaps no words in the English language — or any language — that can provide the proper vocabulary for how much we miss him. I promised God and my son that I would tell his story, so on this, the anniversary of his birth into our realm and the Heavenly, I present to you here something I wrote to him.

“Before I formed thee in the bowels of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations.” (Jer 1:5)

Dear Son,

That passage I just shared with you is from the Bible — which I am sure you well know — and it is etched into your tombstone. Now, I imagine you know everything I am going to write to you here, given that you are in the Beatific Vision; nevertheless, writing these words to you is something I have wanted to do for a long while. I have thought about what to write for months now, and it has been hard to formulate my thoughts because there are so many. Of course, I speak to you every day, and you have heard the aching of my heart and the longings of my soul to be with you, but writing those thoughts down has proven difficult.

When we first received your prognosis about three months before you were born, I initially thought I would keep a journal and write everything down. I was inspired by C.S. Lewis’ work, A Grief Observed, wherein he kept a journal, which became a book, about the loss of his wife and his journey of grief and acceptance. However, that didn’t come to pass, at least not yet.

In any event, since this is your birthday, and it is really a double birthday — both earthly and heavenly — I thought I would try to write something beautiful to you and share with you the wonderful things you have done for us. There is enough pain in this world, and Heaven knows — as do you — that your mother and I have carried enough pain in our hearts. So, since birthdays are meant to be joyous occasions, and despite the fact that I miss you more than I need air, let us do our best to focus on the wonderful, the glorious, and the mysterious.

Those three months waiting for you to arrive after the prognosis were, in a word, excruciating. Time has never moved so slowly. We weren’t sure if you were going to make it to birth, given your condition, but you did. Oh, my sweet boy, you were so strong, and you fought so hard. Your mother has given me eight children, you being the seventh, and you were more active than all of them in the womb. The doctors told us that we should be prepared that you may not make it to birth, and that you might not move all that much, but you did the complete opposite.

Mummy and I would joke that it was like you were having a dance party in there. As pregnant women do, she would rest a plate of food on her belly while enjoying a late-night snack in bed, and it was so funny to watch the plate bounce back and forth. We prayed so hard that you would make it to birth so we could meet you and baptize you, and your constant movement was a consolation amidst the uncertainty.

You were so adorable when you came out of the womb, and so full of life. I had never seen a baby with a cleft-lip in person, and it somehow made you even more precious. Being handed your sweet little self from the surgeon and passing you to your mother will forever be one of my greatest memories, and it is a moment that stands in time at the front of my thoughts daily. We wept tears mixed with sorrow and joy in those first moments, and you clung to your mother with all the strength in your tiny body.

We knew that time was precious, so within a few moments it was your time to be baptized. I must say, I have never been more nervous than I was in that moment. Sure, the formula for Baptism is so simple, but the occasion was the weightiest moment in my life. In a way, the nerves I felt were not dissimilar to what I felt the day that I married your mother. When you face a moment of such importance — a moment that will change your life forever — it is all you can do to keep your knees from buckling. I already loved you so much, like I already loved your mother before our wedding, but that moment meant that the love was, in some way, becoming more real. You lay there in the little bassinet the nurses had prepared for us to baptize you, and the sweet laver of salvation dripped across your forehead. I said to you, “Gabriel, I am your daddy, and I love you very much,” before I proceeded to give you the sacrament.

I don’t think I will ever do anything more important for any of my children for the rest of my life. I have you to thank for that honour.

While your mother was being stitched up, this being the seventh cesarean section she had gone through, you lay on her chest. Your heart started to slow down, and your colour started to change. The doctor listened to your chest and gave us a look that said, “He might not be with us much longer.” In theory, we knew that might happen, so we were prepared to accept your life being so short, but you kept fighting! Somehow — I think because of your mother’s love — you pinked back up, and your heart began to beat faster. We couldn’t believe it.

Your siblings and extended family were waiting for you, along with Father Stannus, in the recovery room, and we wanted as much as anything to bring you in alive. I thank God every day that we were able to do that. There is a photo of me carrying you into the recovery room to meet your loved ones, with Father by my side. That moment was like a representation of what it must be like to enter the Communion of Saints. The anticipation, the longing, the joy, the triumph, the relief. You entered that room with your pure and spotless soul, like a hero returning from battle. You had captured our hearts, and spending even just a little bit of time with you was the greatest gift.

Father Stannus gave you the Sacrament of Confirmation, which was another immeasurable gift. To think that our sweet little boy, with his ailing heart and short lifespan, would not only be baptized, but have the strength and glory of his soul increased as he prepared for Heaven.

My mother, your Nonna, procured a cupcake and a candle for you so we could sing you Happy Birthday, and it was the most perfect birthday imaginable. But, in a way, it was you who gave us the gift, even though it was your birthday. You gave us yourself. You gave us your courage and your fighting spirit. You allowed us to feel your sweet little breaths and to hear your precious little sounds. You allowed us to touch you, to hold you, and to feel your warmth. You were so good to us.

Of course, not long after everyone left, you breathed your last and fell into that deep sleep.

It was 3:15 when your soul left the Earth, which was so fitting.

“I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel” (Gen 3:15).

That prophecy from Genesis is, of course, about the role that Our Blessed Mother would have in the Salvation of Mankind — her seed being Our Redeemer. It was so fitting for your time of death to share in that numerical significance because Our Lady experienced the depth of that prophecy when she heard the words of Simeon, “And thy own soul a sword shall pierce.”

Oh, my dear boy, your mother’s soul was pierced deeply. The prognosis was like a prophecy wherein she was told that her little child would be taken from her, and it was something she had to accept and could not escape. The strength of your mother knows no bounds. The trials she has been through and the courage she has demonstrated are difficult to put into words. She has given everything for her children and for me, and she would do it all again. It has been my honour and privilege to stand by her and take care of her through it all, and I would do it a thousand times over. You could not have asked for a better mother to bring you into this world, or a better mother to hold you as you left. I know you know that, but I just wanted to say it.

She misses you, my son, as do I. But I think there is nothing on Earth that comes close to the pain a mother must feel upon losing a child, and to think that she had to live with that fact for months before it even happened. She is the most wonderful, courageous, and devoted woman I have ever known — not to mention gorgeous. I am the luckiest man in the world.

For some, the loss of a child may cause discord, but not for your mummy and daddy. We have you to thank for that. Your little life and your departure brought us even closer together, because we both share, at the same time, a unique and deep sorrow and deep joy. You gave us a cord sent down from heaven that tethers us together in an unbreakable bond. Thank you for that.

In any event, when you passed on, we both knew it had happened, and the doctor confirmed it. In that moment we did not weep, and, I have to say, there was a profound peace, even consolation, that came over us. The tears came later, but that moment was not sad. It was a grace from God, and certainly wasn’t from our own strength.

We had certainty that you had entered the Region Beyond the Thunder and joined the Angelic Chorus of a million Saints singing praises to God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We knew that you had accomplished in a mere few hours the greatest thing that any man born of woman can accomplish — the salvation of your soul. You had left his Vale of Tears and made your home in that Heavenly Country where all sorrow has passed away, and there is only glory, triumph, and never-ending happiness. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away” (Apoc 21:4). We knew that despite our loss, Heaven had gained a new resident, and that you stood in the presence of the King of Kings, “And he that sat on the throne, said: Behold, I make all things new” (Apoc 21:5).

So, I need to ask you something that I have been wondering about for a while: What was it like?

That moment wherein you left the realm of moments in time and were plucked from the cord of chronology into the Infinite Sea of Eternity — what was it like?

When your soul left your body and was carried to Heaven by angels — what was it like?

When you first stood at the Feet of Our Saviour, and He uttered to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant” — what was it like?

Yes, I miss you, and I wish I could take you places, show you the world, read you bedtime stories, and tickle you so you laugh until you are out of breath, but I could never provide you with the joy you must have received as you journeyed from this temporal realm of beginnings and ends to the Endless Realm of Seraphic Love.

You ran your race, you fought your own fight, and you kept the Faith. Oh, my sweet boy, it must have been inexpressibly glorious.

I have long cogitated on your entering the Communion of Saints and how your story is like a conclusion to a story that began at the beginning of time.

There is a thread from the First Adam, to the Second, to your salvation that has been running through my mind for months like the unfolding of a celestial epic. It is all I think about.

You see, your salvation is the culmination of so many historical manifestations of Providence that it takes my breath away to even attempt to comprehend them.

I think about Peter and Paul, giving their lives for Christ in Rome. Your Nonna came with her family from Italy, from a city called Lucca, decades ago, and it is said that Saint Paulinus, a disciple of Peter, was the first to convert the Lucchesi. To think, almost two thousand years ago, a Saint who followed Saint Peter showed up in your Nonna’s town and preached the Gospel, and all those centuries later, that Faith that flowered in the hearts of your ancestors found its way into a hospital room in Canada. It is remarkable.

From my father’s side, you received English blood. The Hall’s came from England around the turn of the last century, and, as you know, it is quite a special thing to come from a line of English Catholics. The persecutions that our ancestors must have endured to keep the faith are an astonishing thing to contemplate. As I think about you and your eternal dwelling place, I think about Saint Edmund Campion. He knew he would die, but he carried on and kept the faith despite the rack, the tower, and the tree at Tyburn. The arms of Our Saviour stretched out from the centre of the Cross into 16th-century England to fortify the heart of Saint Edmund, who similarly allowed his arms to be stretched for the Soul of England. Saint Edmund did that for you, my dear son. You are the spiritual offspring of a very great set of heroes.

I think of Saint Patrick, who exorcised the Devil from the Emerald Isle so that the Irish could escape the domination of Druidic Paganism and embrace the Sweet Yoke of Salvation. Your mother’s father gave her the maiden name Sheahan, which is as Irish as Smithwick’s induced lamentation. You inherited the Faith of so many Irishmen who never relented, never surrendered, and never sold their homeland for 30 pieces of pounds sterling. You truly are the embodiment of the Fighting Irish who fought for their country for 800 years. You were a fighter from the moment you were conceived and lived and died with the resolve of an Irish Catholic. I am so proud of you.

Saint Joan of Arc visits me in my daydreams, and I find myself on a battlefield in France, following the lead of La Pucelle d’Orléans as she leads the French Crusade to restore the Dauphin to his royal dignity. Because of her efforts, France remained French, and because of that, when the French came to Canada, they brought the Catholic faith to the shores of Lake Huron just minutes from our home. On a clear day I can see the lake from town, and I imagine those French missionaries canoeing along the coastline, looking for a place to rest their aching bodies, so many thousands of miles from home.

I think of that son of Saint Joan, Saint Jean de Brébeuf and his love of our country and the people who lived here. I think of the blood he shed for Christ on our soil so that his spiritual children could populate this vast, beautiful, yet unforgiving landscape.

I think of Juan Diego, and that fateful day he encountered Our Lady of Guadalupe on that hill in Mexico City. I think of his Tilma and the miracles that converted a nation of Aztecs. I am transported to that shrine in Guadalupe where, years ago, I found myself kneeling and weeping, brought back to my baptismal Faith by the tender, yet firm hand of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

I think of Saint Augustine writing on the coast of North Africa, whose Confessions converted my mind to follow my heart that had been captured by the Virgin Mary.

I think of the Archbishop who kept the Faith in all its fulness through that difficult time, and that, because of his courage, Father Stannus was sent to us from the Swiss Alps to be with us when you arrived.

My son, it is because of all of those Saints and heavenly interventions that I found myself in that operating room baptizing you. You are the result of centuries, even millennia, of faith, perseverance, love, miracles and devotion. The blood that ran through your veins was animated by the spiritual children of Saint Peter, Saint Patrick, Saint Edmund, Saint Joan, Saint Jean, Saint Juan Diego, Saint Augustine, the Archbishop and countless other saints and martyrs who sojourned on this Earth and kept the Faith for you. Your blood flowed like a microcosm of Christendom, the culmination of a great battle against the World, the Flesh and the Devil, which resulted in the salvation of a precious soul in a hospital in Canada almost 2000 years after the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Our Divine Saviour.

Your entrance into that Never-Ending Hymn is like a crescendo in the Symphony of Providence that designated a melody just for you so that you could contribute to the Angelic Chorus.

You brought with you to Heaven the hearts of your mother and father, the hopes and dreams of your siblings, and the bloodlines of so many hundreds and thousands of souls who, like Abraham, followed the Voice of God for unseen descendants, with whom you now spend Eternity in that Region Beyond the Stars.

You are the greatest gift that God has ever bestowed on our family, and in the dark times when we find ourselves seemingly lost in the squalls of Lake Huron, we can look to you and find our North Star. God sent you to us so that we could decrease and you could be increased from your mortal lot into Life Everlasting to illuminate our way through the storms of sorrow. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4-5).

You are our Virgil and Beatrice, and we will follow you through the obscurity of this purgatorial wilderness until we inhabit l’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle in Paradiso (Canto XXXIII, line 145). [The love that moves the sun and stars in Heaven]

You are our hero, our inspiration, our solace and intercessor. You are our son, and you are our Saint.

Many have prayed for your intercession, and you have helped them all. So many grieving mothers and downtrodden fathers have uttered, Saint Gabriel Augustine, pray for us! And you have heard them.

I could never be more proud of a child than I am of you. You are the greatest thing your mother and I have ever done, and we love you more than words can express.

I promise you, my sweet boy, that your mummy and daddy will think of you always and love you forever. We will tell your story to anyone who will listen, and even to those who didn’t ask!

People will ask us about our children, and we will say, “We have seven on Earth and one in Heaven, and he is praying for us, Love is his home, the Saints are his family, and he sees the Face of God.”

Boasting isn’t always tasteful, but I will gladly boast about you until the day I die.

I don’t know how many more years the Good Lord has in store for me on this Earth, but please keep praying for me. The Bible tells us that Heaven is like a banquet, and Saint Brigid of Kildare tells us of the Lake of Ale at the Banquet. Well, I promise you that with your prayers, I will do everything I can so that, God willing, you and I can raise a glass to the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Mother, and all the Angels and Saints when we reunite. I will be very thirsty by then and very worn out, so please, ensure that whoever pours the pints up there pours me a big one.

I love you, my son, and I would love nothing more than to see you again. Thank you for letting us hold you and kiss you, for letting us bury you, and long to see you again. Thank you for everything you have done for us and for all that you will continue to do.

Blessed be God.

Blessed be His Holy Name.

Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.

Blessed be the Name of Jesus.

Blessed be His Most Sacred Heart.

Blessed be His Most Precious Blood.

Blessed be Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

Blessed be the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete.

Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.

Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.

Blessed be her glorious Assumption.

Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.

Blessed be St. Joseph, her most chaste spouse.

Blessed be God in His Angels and in His Saints.

May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and unutterable Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in Heaven, on earth, and in the hells, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

Amen.

Happy Birthday, my sweet boy.

Saint Gabriel Augustine, pray for us!

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