August 3rd 2018, Jules would've turned 29 today. In one year, he would've turned 30 and I probably would've bullied him for being so old. I wonder if he'd be married by now. Maybe he would've had children by now. Imagine if he would've had his own family with a wife and children. I would have a sister in law and nieces or nephews. I'm kind of sad about not being able to be the cool aunt.
I woke up because the sun was shining in through the window at me. I can't remember the last time it rained on his birthday. I'm happy to see the sun didn't cancel on me this year either. I'm a bit surprised I wasn't woken by Charles, Pierre and Arthur storming my room and pushing me around. I turn to see if Evie is still sleeping, but she's missing. The side next to me is empty. I look around the room and then at the clock. It's only 11AM so I'm surprised she's even awake.
I step out of bed and look for a big hoodie I can hide in for the whole day. I don't really know what I can handle today and I expect them to leave me alone to die today. I guess that's why Evie didn't wake me up before getting out of bed. I begin to dig through my clothes in my closet and find the hoodie that Charles let me borrow in France. He hasn't asked for it back yet so I guess it's not that important to him. I put it on.
It's empty downstairs too. It's Friday so Pascale is at work. There is no noise coming from anywhere. The kitchen is empty, the backyard is empty and the car is gone from the drive. I sigh and get a glass out, filling it with water and sit down at the kitchen island to drink it. I avoid my phone as much as I can during his birthday because I know people will post about him and it will make me cry. But it's buzzing next to me. I sigh when I look over and see it's my mom calling me, probably to make sure I'm not in my room crying all day.
"Bonjour maman," Good morning mom, I try to sound happy to hear from her, but not today.
"Chérie, comment vas tu?" Darling, how are you? she asks and I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to avoid a headache. I know what she wants to hear so I just shake my head and suck it up.
"Je vais bien," I'm alright, I say but then let a few seconds before replying with the rehearsed answer, "Il ne voudrait pas que je sois triste le jour de son anniversaire, alors j'essaie de ne pas," He wouldn't want me to be sad on his birthday, so I'm trying not to, I sigh and I can almost see it in front of me how she puts a hand on her chest and smiles.
"J'ai les garçons avec toi pour te remonter le moral," You got the boys there with you to cheer you up, she says and I cock my eyebrows as I look around the empty house I'm sitting in, "Achetez des fleurs, si vous trouvez le temps d'y aller," Buy flowers, if you find the time to go.
"J'y vais ce soir, je pense qu'il y a peut-être des journalistes dehors pendant la journée," I'm going tonight, I think there might be journalists out during the day, I tell her as I look outside at Charles' grey ferrari driving into the driveway.
"Cela semble intelligent," Sounds smart, she agrees.
I manage to end the conversation with my mom and hang up the phone just as the four of them walk through the door. I hear them shushing each other before walking into the kitchen. Charles stops and stares at me and when Pierre walks in and sees me he cusses about it. I raise my eyebrows, because did they expect me to not be here, or? My eyes fall to what they're holding and I see them both holding a bag each, flowers sticking up out of both of them. Evie and Arthur walk in too and they also begin to cuss.
"We thought you'd still be asleep," Charles says, putting the bag on the kitchen island and fishing the bouquet of blue orchids and white lilies out of the bag. It was insanely beautiful. I was looking at them rather than at him. They must've been specially made, because it's rare to make bouquets out of orchids.
He handed the bouquet to me and I smiled at him while trying not to tear up, but everything is probably going to make me emotional today. He pulls me into a hug and kisses my cheek before he turns back to the bag. Evie pushes past Pierre and hugs me without even showing me the bouquet of flowers she was holding. She just hugged me tightly, swaying side to side. She then lets me go and hands me a bouquet of bright, yellow sunflowers mixed with smaller daisies. It looked summery and happy. She smiled widely as she handed them to me.
"I felt like you might need some extra sunshine today," She said. I laughed at it and put the two bouquets aside. Pierre also had flowers with him and he handed them to me with a casual smile before pulling me in to hug me, messing up my hair a little before letting me go again.
"You definitely don't need anymore flowers, but you definitely deserve them," he says and I laugh, because no, I don't really know what I'll do with four bouquets of flowers. His bouquet had rose-colored lilies and he chuckled when I took them from him, "I chose them because this kind of lilies are called Celine," he says and I smile even wider at it because even if he probably just found them by accident, it still felt thoughtful.
Arthur walked over with his bouquet. Light blue tulips surrounded by baby breaths. He handed them over with a wide smile while I wanted to cry because it looked amazing. He pulled me in and hugged me tighter than any of the others had. He lifted me off the ground and kissed my cheek three times before letting me go.
"Si forte," So strong, he whispers and once again my eyes water. I wipe the tears away before they manage to fall and then I turn to all of them. I'm about to open my mouth to thank them when Evie hands me something. I look down and see her handing me a gift with a red bow on top of it. I take it from her and then look between all of them.
"Guys, it's not my birthday, it's Jules' birthday. I'm not supposed to get gifts," I chuckle at them. Charles shakes his head.
"Well, it should be celebrated, and it's not like we can celebrate him, so we might as well celebrate his favorite person," he shrugs. After that, there is no stopping the water works. I really hope I actually was his favorite person, because he was certainly mine.
To distract from the fact that I'm crying already, I begin to open the gift Evie handed me. I untie the bow and rip the paper off. I'm holding a frame with a picture of two little girls with bright faces holding their medals. Evie and I have our arms around each other in the picture. She had lost one of her bottom teeth and the gap was so clear due to her bright smile. I look up at her and I cry even harder because, god, I am so happy she's still with me
"I love you, I love you, I love you," I tell her as I hug her and sob over her shoulder. She pats my hair and my back while holding me to her.
"I love you too, I love you too, I love you too," she tells me. I smile and she helps me wipe my tears when I let her go. I turn to the boys again, Charles takes the frame and they all look at the photo with sweet smiles. Arthur recognizes the competition, he was behind the camera when we took this photo. Charles was there, but was off with Max somewhere.
"Thank you, all of you, the flowers were all so beautiful," I say between my cries as I look at them. The sunflowers need to be on my makeup table. I need the two blue and white flowers on each side of my bed. The lilies I'm going to place in my window. I just need to find the energy to cut the stems and find some vases.
"We bought ingredients for a cake," Charles says, starting to unpack the bag.
"We are gonna make sourdough toast for you, because these guys told me that's your favorite," Pierre tells me.
"We bought balloons," Evie tells me, keeping an arm around my shoulders, "we should send him some balloons to let him join the celebrations. We are celebrating his birthday after all."
"If you want to go to..." Arthur says but he won't finish his sentence. No one ever mentions his grave and I don't know what's so hard about saying it, "there's a lot of people who'd take advantage of you today."
"I'm not going until tonight," I say, picking up the flowers from the kitchen island, "and if it's okay, I'd like to go by myself." I bring the flowers over to the sink and fill it with water so that the flowers can be hydrated until I have the energy to take care of those stems. Charles turns to me when I say that and first he just looks and then he nods with the rest of them.
"Just let me know if you want a ride there or anything," he says and then looks me up and down and I remember I'm wearing his hoodie. "Is that my hoodie?"
"Yes," I admit, looking down at it, "I forgot to give it back in France and it's big and depressing so I put it on and you're not getting it back until tomorrow at the very earliest."
"No, go change into something nice, we're celebrating," Charles says, beginning to push me out of the kitchen. Evie goes with me and she pulls me with her towards my room.
"If we're celebrating does that mean I can drink?" I yell over my shoulder.
"No, we don't drink away the pain, Cece!" Pierre yells back and I see Arthur hitting his arm, probably because he called me Cece. No one but them, maybe Evie, are allowed to call me Cece. It was reserved for Jules and the boys only. But today it felt okay to hear it. Jules started it and we're celebrating him today, so technically that should be the only thing they call me today.
We get up to my room and I grunt as I walk into my closet. I look through my clothes and come back out with a dress in my hands. She grabs it from me and shakes her head.
"No black, we're doing happy colors."
"I don't feel like a happy color."
"I frankly don't give a shit about what color you feel like, black is not the vibe for today."
"Then what the hell am I going to wear?"
"What was Jules' favorite color, red?"
"Blue."
"Ironic, considering Ferrari is red," She says and raises her eyebrows.
"I used to tell him that too but he liked blue because the ocean is so blue on sunny days," I tell her with a shrug and a faint smile appears on her lips. Then she marches into my closet and I hear her digging around my clothes before she comes out with a light blue strapless dress. It ends on my mid-thigh and you tie it in a bow in the front. I bought it for Svea's birthday party three years ago and I haven't really worn it since. She then hands me a white cardigan. I look at her for a while but then just change into it and decide not to fight her about it. She means well.
She sits me down in front of my mirror and helps me curl my hair. Then I just add a light blue bandana to keep my hair out of my face. She orders me to put at least some mascara and blush on. I tell her it's going to run from my crying but she hands me her waterproof mascara. I just apply it, some blush and some bronzer. Evie must've done her makeup before she left this morning, but she changes into a white dress with small flowers on it and braids the top half of her hair and lets it fall down the back.
We walk downstairs and see the boys have changed again. They're a bit dressed up but they all seem to have agreed to not wear any black today. They've set the table outside and the food is already finished. Arthur stole the bouquet of flowers that was already in a vase on the living room table and put them on the table outside. We all sat down to eat and I tried so hard to not think about anything sad and ruin the nice meal by crying.
Seb called Charles during the lunch and because he didn't know he was on speaker phone, he asked how I was and Charles quickly started stuttering as he told him that I was fine and that I had gotten a bunch of flowers. Seb then asked to speak with me and Charles handed the phone over. He told me that he hopes I'm doing decent and that he wants me to continue to see it as a happy day. He also told me that he had made sure someone put flowers on the grave for him today and I told him it was sweet, thanking him very much, since Jules can't.
We finish the food and I lay down on the grass to let the food melt into my stomach. I'm so full I can't believe it. But they were all quick to get all the dishes inside and pull me into the kitchen so we could all bake the cake together. Well... not completely from scratch. They had bought a cake mix. While they dealt with the making of the cake, I placed myself in front of the sink with my bouquets and started cutting the stems off and organizing the bouquets before putting them into vases.
"Bon dieu," Good god, Pascale says when she comes home and sees us all in the kitchen. She looks at me as if she's shocked and then at the flowers in front of me. "You're up, you're dressed, you're a florist," she says while motioning at me.
"She didn't have a choice," Evie says, moving some hair over my shoulder while she smiles at Pascale. She walks in and looks at the cake that Charles is just taking out of the oven. She smiles and then comes over to hug me before saying she'll be out of our way. She takes the two bouquets I'm done with to my room.
Together we begin to decorate the cake. We put some vanilla cream between the layers and then put whipped cream all over it. We use raspberries to write his name on the cake and it looks really, really horrible, but it's a cake. We laugh at how bad and cheap it looks, but we put candles shaped as the numbers two and nine on the cake and light them. We let them burn until they burn out before we cut it up and eat it. It's not the best cake I've had but it's not that bad either. It's kind of dry.
After cutting the cake, we fill a balloon with helium and we bring it outside, singing happy birthday. We let it go and watch it soar into the sky, further and further away and up into the air. I can't keep myself from crying when I watch the balloon soar away. I feel Charles hand on my shoulder and Evie's head on my other shoulder. Arthur comes up behind me, wrapping his arms above my shoulders and places his chin on top of my head. Pierre, who can't really fit anywhere, pats my arm a little in support.
Eventually I wipe my tears and I go inside to get my things. I want to go see him. I've been hanging around here 'celebrating' his birthday, but I haven't even gone to see him. I ask Charles to drive me and he nods, telling me he's in the car when I'm ready. Arthur asks me if I'm sure about going alone and I nod. I want to be able to talk to him and cry there without feeling like I'm wasting someone's time, or making someone feel like they need to comfort me.
Charles and I stop at a florist and I buy a bouquet with a mix of blue flowers. We brought a blue balloon and filled it with helium and we stopped to buy a candle. Charles dropped me off outside the graveyard and told me to call him when I want to come home.
My throat was closing up and my chest got heavier as I walked past all the stones over to where Jules is. I held onto the flowers that I had tied the balloon around tightly and I tried to avoid crying before I even got there. I saw the gravestone in the distance when I started to get closer. There were candles lit in front of it and lots of red flowers all around. I bet most of them are from people who barely knew him.
When I get there, I sit down on my knees, place the bouquet in the middle of all the red ones and let the balloon soar above the gray stone. I use my lighter to light the candle and I place it amongst the other candles. I stare at his name that's engraved in the stone along with his birthday. We didn't add the date of his death, only the year. We don't want the day of his death to mean anything so we only kept the year on it. I can't see whatever quote my parents chose, because it's hidden under all the flowers.
"Joyeux anniversaire Jules," Happy birthday, Jules, I whisper, because I can't get any words out right now. Even when I whisper, the words are strained and my eyes have watered to the point where everything is blurry, "Tu me manques," I miss you.
I look around to make sure that no one is here. A part of me is paranoid that someone is going to see me here. I don't want anyone to bother me right now and I don't want to end up on some gossip site tomorrow either.
Silently, I tell him about the flowers I got and how today was spent like christmas. Someone else was born on the day so someone else gets presents. I did tell him how much I loved the flowers and I told him about the cake we made that was both dry and ugly. I made sure he was caught up with my life. I told him about my plans to go to more races with Charles when summer break is over. Arthur's F4 schedule looks different for the most part, they're in some places at the same time but mostly they're different. I want to go with Charles to be with Evie, if it wasn't for her going with the F1 drivers, I would go with Arthur. I don't tell him about all the weird things I've been feeling around Charles though. I don't want him to know.
After forty minutes of this I become aware of the fact that I'm talking to a stone above a casket where my brother's body used to be. It's definitely not there anymore. He's not even here. I'm talking to a stone, that's about as alive as he is. This is where it breaks and I can't keep it together anymore. I'm not peacefully crying anymore, I'm sobbing and whining. I'm begging for him to come back even though I know he won't. He will never be here again. I've seen him for the last time and it's killing me. I'll never see his face, never hear him laugh, never hug him, never be an aunt and he will never meet my children or see me get married. I miss him now and I miss him for everything he's going to miss, even though they haven't happened yet.
The sun has started to go down on me and it will go dark soon enough. But as I look up at the sky, it's a bright orange shining right at me. The crying doesn't stop and my chest and stomach aches while sob after sob leaves my lips. I stare at the sun's orange light and I want to believe that Jules is somewhere, seeing me and knowing that I would do anything to have him back.
But then the recurring thought comes back; no matter what I'm willing to do. He is gone and he is nowhere. All these flowers for someone who won't know. All these candles for a stone that just stands here filling a place in the world that a breathing and living person once used to hold.
My cries get even louder and I struggle to breathe the more I cry, but there's no way to stop it. I feel somewhat of panic while feeling the need to throw up. An arm wraps around me and pulls me from my knees to my side and then my head is against a warm chest, whose heart I can hear beating on the other side of the skin and bones. Two arms wrap around me and pull me closer before a hand starts stroking my arm.
"Respire, Cece," Breathe, a soft voice tells me. Charles repeats the word a few times. He takes the bandana off my head and his fingers intertwine with my hair, massaging my scalp while carefully shushing me. "Concentrez-vous sur autre chose," Focus on something else, he tells me and I begin to listen to the thuds coming from inside his chest.
Five minutes pass where I focus on nothing but the beating of his heart. My breath is shaky but I'm no longer hysterical. The tears won't stop, but I'm calmer. My body still shakes every now and then from my now silent crying.
"Pourquoi es-tu revenu?" Why did you come back? I ask, but it sounds like a whine and my breath is jagged. Charles keeps stroking his hand up and down my arm.
"Je ne suis pas parti, j'ai conduit quelques rues mais je ne voulais pas te quitter au cas où tu aurais besoin de moi," I didn't leave, I drove a few streets down but I didn't want to leave in case you needed me, he says before sighing, "J'ai vu quelqu'un avec un appareil photo et je suis devenu paranoïaque, il était sur le point de faire noir aussi," I saw someone with a camera and got paranoid, it was getting dark too.
The sun was almost down and instead of orange, the sky looked rather red. I looked at it while trying my best to breathe properly. I didn't move. I didn't want to move. I felt safe where I was, against Charles' chest with his arms around me.
When the sun had gone down and most of the light came from the candles by the grave, I sat up and I turned to look at him for the first time since I said goodbye to him in the car. He wipes tears from under his eyes and I can see that he's been crying too. He's been crying silently while sitting here with me, comforting me, and somehow that felt even more comforting.
We both just stood up and he put an arm around my shoulder as we took one last look at the grave. I waved to it even though I know it's just a stone that's there to show that Jules had once existed on this earth. Charles then leads me back to the car and we drive in silence back home. We don't speak much on the way back, but we don't need to. The silence is way too comfortable to disturb as we're driving through the dark.
When we walk through the door, the whole household shows up in the hallway and I feel a bit embarrassed about the state I'm in. My eyes are all red and puffy, the mascara probably gone even though it was waterproof. Pascale comes to hug me as soon as she sees me.
"Y avait-il beaucoup de fleurs? bougies?" Were there many flowers? Candles? she asks while she holds my face in her hands. I nod and smile, making her smile back.
"You should read this, Cece," Arthur says as he hands me his phone.
Daniel Ricciardo about Bianchi
Jules Bianchi was supposed to turn 29 years old on August 3rd, 2018, but suffered a tragic accident during a Formula 1 race in 2014 that resulted in his death 9 months later, leaving friends and family behind him. Daniel Ricciardo being one of the friends he left heartbroken.
The two of them raced together in Formula 1 and became close friends who spent time together off-track as much as on-track.
"Jules really was a great person, really funny and he really cared about the people close to him and he made sure to show it," Ricciardo says about his late friend and colleague.
"It was really tragic and heartbreaking to see all the hurt his death caused not only to the Formula 1 community, but to his friends and his family. His sister was really young at the time and I remember seeing her at the hospital and at the funeral and it just hurt in your whole body to see someone so young be in such emotional pain," he added, speaking of Bianchi's younger sister Céline Bianchi who is soon to turn 18 years old.
Today, Ricciardo races with Bianchi's godson, Charles Leclerc, who races in Sauber's Formula 1 team. Leclerc and his younger brother, Arthur Leclerc, grew up with the Bianchi's and were seen at the paddock a lot in 2013-14.
"Charles [Leclerc] spent a lot of time with Jules at the paddock and I've sort of seen him grow up to be the racer he is today," Ricciardo told us when asked about a photo of him with Céline Bianchi along with Charles and Arthur Leclerc.
"He is a very talented driver and I don't doubt he'll make it grand one day," he adds, "I feel
like everything Charles does today is Jules' legacy in a way."
Céline Bianchi along with her family stepped away from the public eye completely after the passing of her brother. So people were rather surprised when she showed up at the Monaco Grand Prix this year. Maybe it's not too weird considering her life-long friend was driving his first home race in Formula 1. She later showed up at the French Grand Prix where she seemingly spent most of her time with the sister of another Formula 1 driver, Max Verstappen.
Evelina Verstappen, 18, is a regular at her brother's races and seems to have hit it off with the Bianchi sister quite well. It must be nice for her to have a friend her age. We can't wait to see more of this pair!
"Céline [Bianchi] is such a star in my eyes. She went away, took her time and came back to support her best friend. You'd think watching your best friend race would be too tough after what happened, but the support she has for Charles is just... incredible," Ricciardo says about Céline's relationship with the Formula 1 Sauber driver.
"It's nice to have her around, because she makes sure no one forgets Jules. She resembles him in so many ways that you can't do anything but remember him when she's around. The way she talks, her kindness, her humor and just... the way she carries herself with so much positivity even after suffering through something so hard at such a young age." Ricciardo praises when asked about how it feels when she's at the paddock.
"I look up to her," Ricciardo said before laughing with his wide smile.
When we asked him if he feels some kind of responsibility to look after her since his friend's passing, he replied:
"Obviously no one will be able to take Jules' place in her life. Their relationship was something really special and it was beautiful to see. But if she ever needs someone for anything, I doubt I'd be the only one willing to do it for her. Of course I feel like I want to look after her and make sure she's okay and if I'm not there to do it I know she has the three Leclerc boys to always look after her."
It's clear Jules Bianchi left a lot of love behind and I bet he'd be thrilled to know his little sister is being taken care of by his closest friends. We wish him a happy birthday and we wish his family all the best. But we hope we haven't seen the last of Céline Bianchi at the paddock.
The article made me cry, again. I gave the phone back to Arthur and immediately called Daniel, telling him he was the sweetest guy on the face of the earth. I thanked him for his sweet words and he asked me how my day had been, considering the day. I told him about what we'd done but left out the part about what happened at the grave. I don't want him to feel too bad for me today.
When I hung up, Evie told me to go on twitter instead, so I did and saw my name along with the words 'disgusting' and 'disrespectful' which brought panic to my chest as I scrolled to see what was going on. The camera Charles had seen he had every right to be paranoid about.
There had been a photo of me taken by his grave. I expected it to be some ugly photo of me crying my whole soul out, but it was a subtle photo. Well, I was crying, but you couldn't see my face properly. It had been taken from behind. The orange sky visible above me. You could see the shadow of my side profile if you looked closely but other than that just my hair and the back of my outfit as I was sitting on the grass. It looked like I was sitting there peacefully, but this was where I was hysterical, meaning the photographer had seen me like that and decided to snap a photo of it.
The photo was actually kind of pretty, but the thought of someone seeing me like that and invading my privacy by taking a photo without my consent and then spreading it on the internet made me so disgusted. I was appalled and I wanted someone to yell at.
"I was grieving and someone used it to sell a picture," I muttered as I turned off the lights next to my bed as me and Evie had gone to bed, "And I'm never going to be an aunt! I don't have any other siblings, I can only be a mom, never an aunt!" I complain to her as I lay down on my pillow.
"What are you talking about?" She scoffs, "You'll be the aunt to my kids, whoever doesn't call you aunt Cece gets a spanking."
I laugh a little before I close my eyes, feeling warmth, disgust, pain and so, so, so much missing. I miss my brother. So, so much.