Cristopher Ramirez was the kind of man who loved and laughed passionately, worked hard and always kept a smile. His wife, Johanna Avita Hernandez, remembers him with love.
The two met on March 11 of last year, when Hernandez went to a friend's get-together.
"He told me, 'can I give you a kiss?' and I said 'no, I don't know you like that' and then he said, 'we'll I'm going to steal it from you,'" Hernandez said.
Ramirez stole more than just a kiss that night.
"Every weekend we spent together we would go to the movies, we would go on hikes," she said.
It was the beginning of their beautiful love. Their birthdays were only a day apart.
"At least I got to spend the last birthday with him.”
Hernandez shared the story of the beautiful gift she got him -- 26 balloons with 26 reasons why she loved him.
“I loved him to death so I would spoil him every chance I got,” she said.
"He will always be my corazón de melón," she said. Corazón de melón is a common Spanish phrase of endearment.
That's what she called him every day, until the very last one.
Ramirez was killed on April 16 after a trench collapsed at a construction site he was working at in Windsor. Jorge Baez Valadez, of Denver, was also killed in the collapse.
"They sat me down and told me 'don't worry we're working on getting him out he's going to be okay,'" she explained of the day when she rushed to Windsor because Ramirez was struck in the 15-foot trench. Hernandez spoke to him through a radio.
"I told him that he was my corazón de melón and I was waiting for him," she said. "When they came to tell me that he had stopped breathing and that he wasn't with us anymore and I went crazy. I ran to the hole to try to take him out," she said. "I kept telling them 'no you guys told me he was fine, he was going to come home with me.'"
Ramirez didn't go back home with her that night, but a part of him will always be there.
"Our baby is coming July 4th," she said. "He'll be Cristopher Jr. from now on because he'll be just like his dad."
Her corazón de melón will live on and so will all their unforgettable memories
"It kills me really...when my baby asks me, 'where's my dad, mom? Where's my dad? Why don't I have I dad like the rest of the kids?' And what can I tell him besides that he's in heaven with God and the angels?"
Hernandez wants justice to be served for Ramirez and for all the other construction workers, "so that people can go to work comfortably and return to their loved ones," she said.
PHOTOS: Pregnant wife remembers Cristopher Ramirez, who died in Windsor trench collapse
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