Father of 3 Stages 'Grief Photo Shoot' to Remember Wife Who Died of Cancer (Exclusive)
CJ Infantino and his late wife Ariana were high school sweethearts
CJ Infantino's wife Ariana was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in 2015
Throughout her cancer journey, CJ and Ariana were open with their kids, even having them help shave her head
Eventually, the cancer metastasized and spread to Ariana's bones and liver. She moved into hospice care in their home, where she stayed for five days before dying
After she died, CJ sought to keep Ariana's memory alive. So, he started sharing about his grief journey on social media
There are many moments forever etched in CJ Infantino’s memory, but one stands out above the rest. It was Sept. 5, 2020, when CJ and his wife, Ariana, sat their three kids down at the kitchen table in their California home and told them that Ariana, 35, was going to die.
The couple’s youngest, only 8 at the time, turned away, his face blank as he watched his mom sitting in her chair. Meanwhile, their two older kids, 12 and 10, hugged their mom, who had 17 tumors in her brain. "I actually captured the moment we told them on camera," CJ recalls.
CJ Infantino
Ariana Infantino after telling her children she was going to dieAfter the initial shock wore off, the family made their way to the living room. They let themselves cry, with the kids wailing, "Mommy, no, Mommy, no," CJ recalls, adding how he heard their little voices screaming with such agony, pleading for her to stay. Eventually, time passed and they piled off Ariana, ordered pizza and watched a standup comedy special, and then Ariana's favorite movie, Elf.
"Watching the movie felt heavy, and sad. I knew it was the last time we would ever get to watch it with her," CJ tells PEOPLE exclusively over Zoom. "Every moment, which already felt so heavy with meaning, magnified and each one we got with her, there was always the thought of 'Is this the last time?' "
CJ Infantino
Ariana Infantino with her daughterThe high school sweethearts, who married at 21 and 22, had moved to the California Bay Area from New York a few years earlier after CJ landed a job with Meta (formerly Facebook). They spent several years raising their family there until Ariana was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer in 2015 — coincidentally, on CJ’s 30th birthday.
From there, they knew they wanted to move back to New York so Ariana could be surrounded by her family, and their kids could have a stable environment, knowing what was coming. "We spent the next five-and-a-half years trying to live as much life as we could. We wanted to pack 30 years into 10," CJ says.
"I was scared, broken and moving into a stage of life I wasn't prepared for," he adds. "All I could think about was taking care of her and the kids ... I felt myself slipping away and shutting down, going numb in order to process what was happening."
Lindsay Stephany Photography
CJ and Ariana Infantino with their arms around each otherThroughout her cancer journey, CJ and Ariana were open with their kids, explaining, "Mommy has cancer, and we're going to keep fighting it." They made sure to involve the children in the process. When they knew Ariana would lose her hair due to treatment, they turned it into a family event. Together, they pulled out her hair and shaved her head, transforming what could have been a scary, devastating moment into something more manageable.
For CJ, Ariana was the grounded one in their marriage, always doing everything she could to protect him and everyone around her — even as her cancer metastasized and spread to her bones and liver.
"One day, when I was still working for Facebook, I was working remotely in my office at home when I heard a knock on my door," he says. "I knew it had to be something important. I opened the door, and my wife’s eyes were bloodshot. She walked in, and my heart immediately sank. I started to panic, and she said, 'Please don’t freak out.' "
"You can’t tell me that," he recalls replying. "That’s exactly what I’m going to do." Ariana then explained, "I need to let you know the cancer has spread again. I tried to get through a spinal biopsy without being put under so you wouldn’t have to drive me home from the hospital until I knew what was going on."
Lindsay Stephany Photography
Ariana Infantino in hospice surrounded by CJ Infantino and their childrenAs time passed CJ watched Ariana grow weaker. Eventually she moved into hospice care in their home, where she stayed for five days before dying, just 25 days after they'd sat their kids down at the kitchen table. After her last breath, he recalls that everyone "just went silent."
Right away, the father of three felt isolated, as if no one could relate to his experience. He found that the things people said were often unhelpful and, at times, unintentionally harmful. He recalls thinking, "This is not okay. How do we not know how to handle grief? This has been happening for as long as humanity has existed — people dying, people dying young."
"I really just wanted to show my kids that, even though she’s not physically here, it’s okay to talk about her. We’re still allowed to laugh, even when we’re in so much pain," he says. "I remember the first moment I laughed or felt a hint of joy, and I thought, 'Are we allowed to do this?' "
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After Ariana died, CJ tried to keep the traditions they had built as a family of five alive, including their family Christmas cards, which were a big part of her life. He says she maintained a list of 250 people to send cards to every year.
But over time, he realized that this tradition was no longer sustainable. "When my wife died, it was hard to comprehend, but I died with her, and I became something new," he says. "We lose our identity in these really tough losses. So, we have been slowly building new traditions and figuring out what works for us as a family of four and this is something that's ongoing."
In 2021, as CJ worked to find ways to keep old traditions alive while creating new ones, he had an idea just one week before their annual photo shoot.
“I came to the dinner table and said, ‘What if we got a cutout of Mommy?’ ” he recalls. “And we could have her ‘haunt’ the photo shoot, doing all these crazy things with her.” The kids were immediately on board, and CJ had a six-foot-tall cutout made and overnight-shipped for the shoot.
Lindsay Stephany Photography
CJ Infantino with a cardboard cutout of his late wife Ariana Infantino and his kidsA few days later, the family showed up at the photo shoot with the cutout, and the photographer couldn’t stop laughing. “It was amazing. We were in a park, and you could see cars slowing down, people trying to figure out what was going on,” CJ says.
"I love the one with us running away when I think my youngest was lifting up the sheet, and we’re just like, ‘Oh, Mommy’s there,’ and running away," he adds. "Then we went to one of the ponds, and we were trying to lift her up and pretend like she was super heavy. And then the one that always makes me laugh is the one where I actually took a photo with her. We were together, and it’s just so goofy and outlandish. It makes me laugh every time I look at it."
Lindsay Stephany Photography
CJ Infantino with a cardboard cutout of his late wife Ariana InfantinoThe photo shoot became a cathartic experience for the family and captured the attention of almost 1 million people on TikTok. “I’ll bring the cutout out at holidays and parties sometimes, and she just stands there. It’s hilarious," he says, adding how the cutout is currently in storage.
As CJ continued to share moments like this with his kids, his vision for his future began to take shape — seeds of ideas for businesses aimed at honoring Ariana’s memory and helping others with grief. Eventually, he left his job in engineering and channeled his emotions into creating a clothing brand, Hopeless Mope, which quickly grew into something much larger.
His passion for advocacy has also led to real-world change. He recalls how he reached out to Facebook’s former COO, Sheryl Sandberg, to share his story. Based in part on their conversation, the company eventually created a new policy for paid time off for caregivers.
Today, he continues his mission through the businesses he runs, such as Unvoiced, where he tells stories of grief, believing that storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for fostering empathy and driving change.
"The core of it is my wife’s story — it’s everything we went through together, and it’s everything she was," he says. "It became a vision where I knew I didn’t want any griever to feel alone on their journey through grief and healing. I wanted to educate the world, bring grief out of the shadows, and change the conversation around it."
Lindsay Stephany Photography
CJ Infantino with a cardboard cutout of his late wife Ariana Infantino and his kidsWhile CJ knows that grief is often a taboo topic, he hopes to change that and show that there is no one-size-fits-all approach — only the importance of honoring what is right for your family.
"It's so hard to grieve and to help your children grieve," he adds. "My advice would be to just be kind to yourself. Know what’s right for your family and what works for you, and don’t let anyone else tell you what’s right or wrong. Everyone has an opinion. As soon as I became a widower, everyone had an opinion about how I should live my life — whether it was right, wrong, good or bad. So, trust yourself."
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