Dec 23, 2018 5 min read

CANONSBURG – When Carla Sanpietro talks about her daughter, Giuliana, happy memories bubble up to the surface.

“When she laughed,” Carla said, “she laughed belly laughs.”

Carla and her husband, Frank, remember Giuliana had a sweet, loving spirit who was always willing to help somebody no matter how tired she was. She always had a smile on her face. She would get done with work, and with an infant daughter on her hip, still come over to help her grandfather.

Giuliana “Guz” Balsamo Dennis of McDonald died unexpectedly in her sleep in April 2016. She was just 30.

“When you get that phone call, you never forget that instant, where you were. It was unbelievable. You can’t cry. You can’t think. It is utter shock and disbelief,” Carla said, thinking back to that morning when she found out her daughter was gone.

“This is the worst thing that can happen to you. Until it happens, you just don’t know,” Frank added. “I have been through a lot in my life. Nothing can compare with this.”

The grief is overwhelming.

Carla never has a day without sadness as she tries to find a new normal, but admits she would be happy sitting in their Canonsburg home and never going outside. Carla, who works as a nurse, sees patients all day and has to smile, even when she doesn’t feel like it.

“I was at work two weeks after the funeral. I was dying inside,” she said. “I couldn’t tell people my daughter died. I had to put on a face.”

Frank, who was Giuliana’s stepfather, goes to work and keeps busy. He said music helps to keep him distracted, but he feels like he was sucker punched when he gets home.

The pain on their faces and in the hearts is palpable. When Carla feels happy, she then feels guilty.

Carla wants to enjoy the holidays and special occasions for her other children, and wants them to be happy, too. But losing a child makes everything different. She doesn’t push the other children away, but part of her is afraid to get too close to them again, because she fears feeling that same way again.

She doesn’t love them any less, she loves them more; because they are still here and she appreciates them.

“They don’t push it, but they are there for us. They are going through it too,” Carla said. “Our family was all so close. All of them are having a hard time grieving her death. Something inside disappears. Something just isn’t there.”

The holidays are especially hard for them. They no longer put up a Christmas tree. Carla can’t bear to get out the Christmas ornaments and see the things Giuliana, a 2003 Canon-McMillan grad, made when she was a child.

They put an angel on their light pole outside for Giuliana, who loved the holidays. The family used to gather at Frank and Carla’s home, but the family changed the location of their Christmas Eve celebration.

In order to avoid the empty chair at their first Thanksgiving without Giualiana, the family chose to celebrate at a restaurant. They always display her picture.

Frank visits Giuliana’s gravesite every day, without fail, tending it. He purchased all the plots around her. They acknowledge every holiday and place a grave blanket on her grave every year.

Carla remembers one day when she looked out at the cemetery and saw all of those stones.

“I thought, ‘She is just a stone now.’ People will drive by and just see another tombstone. They don’t know who she is.”

But the family finds comfort because of the way she loved others.

“When she passed, there wasn’t one of us who regretted anything, because every one of us knew how much she loved us,” said Giuseppe Balsamo, Giuliana’s brother. “There was no doubt. She didn’t have to wonder if we loved her or if she loved us. She told you. She made sure you knew it.”

Susan Balsamo, Giuliana’s sister-in-law, added that Giuliana went out of her way to make sure her friends and family were doing alright.

“She was an angel on earth. She lit up the room,” she said. “If you knew she was going to be there, you knew everything would be okay.”

Frank and Carla have a ritual every morning. When they make their bed, they pickup a pillow Giuliana made with her photo on it and kiss it, saying they love her.

“We start out the day like that, every day. It hurts. I can’t touch her, but I can still see her,” Carla said.

“It makes me feel good when people talk about Giuliana. It keeps her alive. I am so afraid it is going to be like she never existed. She was so full of love. It is okay to talk about it.”