Eva Mendes has complicated feelings towards the month of April. In a new Instagram post, Mendes opened up about the month, which saw the death of her brother and the birth of one of her daughters.

Mendes shared her thoughts in an Instagram post, posting two photos of herself. “Oh April… I have such a complicated relationship with you,” she wrote in the caption. Mendes explains that April holds a lot of significant dates in her life, making for an emotional group of days.

“Tomorrow would have been my brother’s birthday,” she continued. “In a couple of weeks from now is the day we lost him…but then, the end of April we got the biggest blessing of all, my little girl was born 8 years ago.” Mendes has two daughters with Ryan Gosling: Esmeralda Amada, born in 2014, and Amada Lee, born in 2016.

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Mendes thoughts on her late brother and her daughter

In previous occasions, Mendes has discussed the fact that she had one of her daughters shortly after the death of her brother and how those two events coincided. “It’s so tough. Thank God I had my baby; it was a week after he passed. So there was something to move forward,” she said to PEOPLE. “There was poetry to it all.”

Mendes revealed that one of the ways in which she honors her brother’s memory is to follow some of his traditions. “My favorite memories are when he used to, at Thanksgiving or a big dinner or Christmas dinner, roast everybody — but roast you hard,” she said. “Of course, I miss him incredibly, and that’s an understatement, but I’m holding on to that tradition. I’m so happy that he gave me that. I don’t think I could carry it on the way he did, but those are some fun memories because he would really get raw.”