Meeting Pablo Mastroeni

I need to be honest with everyone--I am a fairly private person.  I try to not share too much about my life or the lives of my family as we are pretty low key.  An exciting Friday night for us is having a beer or two or a nice glass of Pinot Noir and watching something on the telly.  We are blissfully boring and tend to be fairly reserved.  So writing about my partner Stephanie and our daughter Giada's accident was something that was not only out of character for me, it was a gigantic risk.  When I wrote What Pablo Means To Me I did it with a bit of trepidation and concern as I was not sure how it would be taken.  I remember hitting the submit button in a hotel room in Sioux Falls, South Dakota thinking to myself, is this the right thing to do.

In a word, yes.

We have received a number of incredibly positive and supportive notes from friends and family and the MLS community as a whole.  It was overwhelming.  The support we got from the Colorado Rapids was even more impressive.  From Tim Hinchey to Richard Fleming to other members of the Rapids front office, it showed how much this Rapids family we belong to is just that: a family.  Which made this Sunday down right special.

The article that I wrote made its way to Pablo and I have been working with my Service Specialist and my friend Trevor Wallace trying to come up with a time to meet Pablo and share our story with him in a more personal way.

We set up a time to meet with him after the Seattle match, and we were taken down to the field and met with Pablo for about 10 minutes.  The conversation we had with him will remain a private matter, but needless to say, Giada and Stephanie were happy to share the time with him and describe their story to him face-to-face.

Next month will mark the two year anniversary of the accident.  Stephanie is getting better each day, but she is certainly not 100%.  She describes it this way:

"Sometimes I feel like my brain is a big filing cabinet and someone dumped it all out and I am now nearly done putting things back to where everything should be."

Sharing the story of Giada and Stephanie has been cathartic for all of us.  As the recovery continues we are remembering how blessed we truly are.  We have a wonderful extended family in Burgundy in Commerce City who stepped up to help when they did not need to and for that we will be forever grateful.

And something tells me next month, Stephanie and I will enjoy a nice bottle of wine as we mark the two year anniversary of the accident.