Widower beautifully recreates late wife's pregnancy photos with their 1-year-old daughter
A heartbreakingly beautiful reminder of the gift of life.

In the summer of 2020, Yesenia Aguilar was walking on a sidewalk five minutes from home in Anaheim, California when a drunk driver jumped the curb with her Jeep and struck her. The vehicle narrowly missed her husband, James Alvarez, who was walking beside her. Aguilar was 35 weeks pregnant at the time.
Tragically, Aguilar died at the hospital, but the couple's baby, Adalyn Rose, was delivered via cesarean section and survived. For the next year, Alvarez poured himself into being a good dad to Adalyn while processing the grief and trauma of witnessing his wife be killed right in front of him. The story was widely covered in the news and many people have followed Alvarez as he shares his life with Adalyn on social media. A year after the accident, Alvarez shared photos of Adalyn's first birthday and it people deeply.
With the help of X & V Photography, Alvarez recreated a photoshoot he and Aguilar did not long before the accident. Aguilar was dressed in a pink gown, with her baby bump featuring prominently in the photos. In the new shoot, Alvarez dressed Adalyn in a pink dress as well and posed her in the places her mother was in the previous one.
The effect is sadly touching and achingly beautiful—a reminder of the gift of life.
It's hard to imagine what range of emotions this shoot brought up for Alvarez.
It's also hard to imagine how Adalyn will process the whole story when she's old enough to understand.
But what a beautiful tribute to the woman who gave her life before hers was taken.
"Adalyn, I know if your mommy was here, she would have been the happiest person alive," Alvarez wrote in an Instagram share of the photo shoot. "She would be so excited to celebrate your birthday. That's why, I'm making sure I fulfill her wishes and wish the happiest birthday ever baby. Your mommy and daddy loves you."
It's the hardest thing to make beauty out of tragedy, but these photos prove it's possible. Happy birthday, little Adalyn.
This article originally appeared four years ago.
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A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
Gif of baby being baptized
Woman gives toddler a bath Canva


An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.