Husband Recreates Late Wife’s Maternity Shoot with Their Baby Daughter

People can hate on cliche quotes about living your life like each day is your last, but when you’re the one who’s actually experiencing a tragedy, those sayings can feel more true than ever. Losing your loved ones is one of the darkest things that a human being can go through, and we all dread that moment.

James Alvarez knows that best – on August 11, 2020, when he was taking a sunset walk in Anaheim, California, his 23-year-old wife Yesenia Aguilar passed away. She was 8 months pregnant with their daughter at the time. To this day, James has trouble seeing sunsets without thinking of that horrible day.

Although the accident took Yesenia’s life, the paramedics were able to save her daughter’s life. James named her Adalyn Rose, a name that the couple picked out together. A 40-year-old driver named Courtney Pandolfi, who had previous issues with drunk driving (three prior convictions to be exact), ruined the lives of this family when she jumped the curb and hit Yesenia.

Although Yesenia was tragically lost, their 35-week-old daughter survived via an emergency C-section the same day of the accident. He brought the little girl home from the hospital 3 weeks after her mother passed away due to the DUI driver’s thoughtless actions. After he came home, Alvarez made people all over the world weep when he said to TODAY, “I miss my wife. She should be here with us. She should be here for all the beautiful moments.”

James ultimately decided to pay tribute to the mother of his child in the most touching way possible. On the one-year anniversary of his wife’s passing, he took something unthinkable and turned it into a photoshoot that recreated his late wife’s pregnancy photoshoot with their baby girl Adalyn.