This year Shawn will be traveling to the Granite State. Unfortunately, his mother will not be going.
For the first Mother's Day in his 29 years, Bonfilio will not be spending it with his "best friend."
Dorothy Bonfilio succumbed to breast cancer at the age of 64 this past September.
Anytime a parent - or a family member or friend for that matter - passes away, words cannot describe the feeling. However, it was a little different for Shawn.
Dorothy was all the family this Waltham native had. He was an only child and he never knew his father.
Recently, he wrote the News Tribune a letter about the first Mother's Day without his mother. He said he isn't normally one to write down his thoughts, but felt good after finishing the piece.
"I don't know why I sent it to you. I don't know why I (decided to) write it," he said. "It was how I felt, so I wrote it. It felt good to write it."
While he misses her every day - "Sometimes it doesn't feel real. I'd be at work and something would happen where I'd say I have to call her, but ..." - he knows she is better that she was in the months before he passing.
"It was hard to see her like (she was at the end)," said Shawn, in his soft-spoken voice. "I know she is not in pain anymore."
Dorothy was diagnosed with breast cancer about four years ago and soon after underwent a mastectomy. Shawn said his mother was fine for a couple years, but then her health began to decline.
The possibility of her imminent death became a reality to Shawn when he was on a vacation in South Carolina. A friend of his mother's said it might be best to celebrate her birthday early. Shawn figured the friend was saying that she wouldn't make it to the end of August.
"That's when it hit," he said. "But she made it (to her birthday). She made it to the end of September."
During the final eight weeks Shawn's mother's former co-workers at Fernald Developmental Center helped fill in the gaps when hospice wasn't there. This compassion was something Shawn will never forget.
"They put their lives on hold for eight weeks."
Shawn doesn't know what to expect Sunday. Holidays have always been big for he and his mother. And, it is the first time he will be visiting the grave since the burial, which he said "the whole week he was pretty bad."
Thankfully, his aunt and cousin will be traveling with him.
"It's going to be hard, but as I've been saying, she's better than how she was."
Brad Spiegel is editor of the Daily News Tribune. He can be reached at 781-398-8002 or bspiegel@cnc.com.
