Eva Mendes pays late brother birthday tribute 9 years after death

Eva Mendes is remembering her late brother Carlos as his birth anniversary nears.

The actress, 51, paid a wholesome tribute on Monday ahead of her older brother's birthday nearly nine years after his death.

Eva shared that Carlos, who died of cancer in April 2016, “would’ve had a birthday this April 2.”

"Less than 2 weeks later I gave birth to our second baby,” she recalled, referring to Amada Lee, 8, one of two daughters she shares with longtime partner Ryan Gosling.

The Training Day star continued, “When his birthday nears, I start to look for signs that could be him. Of course, this can all be in my head, but I rather not believe that. It’s not as beautiful.”

She concluded the post with a little more context for the pictures she dropped with it, including a shot of her holding a heart-shaped pebble to her chest as well as a snap of a heart-shaped mark in the wood of a tree.

"So, here I am, starting to see hearts everywhere and [feeling] him a little extra right now. More to come, I’m sure,” she wrote as she signed off with a heart emoji at the bottom.

The birthday tributes are seemingly an annual reflection for the Hitch actress as last year, she confessed in a post that she had “a complicated relationship” with the month of April due to Carlos’ death.

Mendes once reflected on the timing of her sibling’s death and the arrival of her second daughter, calling it a "tough" situation.

The mom-of-two felt that Amada's arrival “was something to move forward,” she told People Magazine in 2019. “There was poetry to it all.”