6 months

I’m not going to sugar coat this.

I’m not going to say that six months after one of your 18 month old twin boys dies… it’s any easier to live with or understand. Because quite frankly – it’s not. It’s not any easier. It’s just more real.

It still sucks beyond belief. The pain is still physical… it either takes my breath away or makes me feel sick to my stomach. It still hurts more than words can describe. And, I still think about him every minute of every day.

In the past six months, we’ve had to cross a lot of hurdles:
* We had to plan a funeral for one of our three precious children.
* We saw our sweet, precious baby boy lying in a casket. Dead.
* I lifted up his shirt to try and see his tummy… and it was covered in bandages and a plastic-wrap-type covering because I’m sure they cut the crap out of him to get tissue samples so they could try and figure out why he died. I also saw the cut across the back of his skull… all stitched up, which I’m sure they wouldn’t have expected me to find. But, I did.
* Dan & I stood, sobbing… and witnessed our son being cremated.
* We received his ashes… in a box. Now he sits in our home… in that box. And that is supposed to be comforting on some level. Right.
* We’ve had to explain numerous times to a now 4 year old where her other baby brother was and that no matter how hard she wished, he wouldn’t come back to life in time for her birthday party.
* We had to learn how to help Matt’s twin brother, Rocco, get past the shock of losing his twin… and at the same time, watch Rocco learn to live life and go on playing… but alone. That is STILL difficult. Seeing Rocco go off by himself in a wagon made for two still rips my heart out.
* We had to take down a crib and put an extra high chair in storage.
* I had to put all of Matt’s stuff… everything from artwork, to sneakers, to first clothes he wore or personalized clothing, towels, etc…. stuff that special to just him… in a box. A stupid, lame, plastic box. And, then, a few months later… I was able to move that stuff to a beautiful chest that his godparents gifted him/us with. All my precious baby’s things – in a box. Forever.
* I went back to work at one of the nation’s top children’s hospitals where miracles happen daily… after my own, perfectly healthy child died of an unknown cause.
* Rocco being admitted to the hospital after having an oddly similar fever to what Matteo had for the 30 hours before he died, ten weeks after Matteo’s death.
* We learned that the coroner could not determine a cause of death. A definite knife to my heart.
* We received our 18 month old son’s death certificate. Something no parent should ever receive.
* We lived through holidays that we celebrated and enjoyed as a family of 5 last year… as a family of 4 this year. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas were quite lonely.
* We welcomed in a New Year… with a lot of tears. All I could think about was turning back the clock.

Some of the things that HAVE changed since Matteo died, are:
* His twin brother Rocco is developmentally in an entirely different place than he was 6 months ago. He won’t carry memories of Matteo or having a brother and that kills me. But, he can point to Matteo’s photos which we have up everywhere. And lately… he will confuse photos of Matt with himself.
* Story time with the kids no longer involves one child sitting in my lap… instead, one is on my right and one is on my left.
* My first thought/hope when looking out my front door is no longer that someone will be bringing Matt back to me… that he wasn’t just “taken” from me and someone is supposed to bring him back. I know he’s dead. Painfully so. * Bath time is sadly much quieter and less crazy.
* Gabby & Rocco have both grown a ton. It makes me wonder how much bigger Matt would be now and how different he would look.
* No more twos of everything, from high chairs and cribs… to boy shirts, pants and shoes.
* I no longer repeatedly look at the baby monitor waiting to hear Matteo's voice crying or his happy little "mamamama" after waking up. Rocco was usually the first to wake... so you'd always wait for Matteo. You'd wait to hear him call for you next. And, I think I was the only one who could ALWAYS tell without error until the day Matt died, which baby was crying. It's a mommy thing, I guess.
* I’m hugely pregnant. 39 weeks pregnant. So, wherever I go… strangers are constantly asking if this is my first child, and then how many times I’ve been pregnant and/or which number child this will be, and then “oh – you had twins… how old are they now?” I kid you not – I get this question at LEAST once a day. Only, most days… I’m better at answering all the questions now than I was a few months ago. Less tears.

Some things that haven’t changed:
* Every time I walk by or into the twin’s bedroom… my heart stops and I think of Matteo.
* Gabby still frequently asks why Matteo died and I continue to not have a perfect answer for her.
* Every time I walk through our bedroom door, I think about the moment Dan handed me my dead baby and the look on his face. Seriously. Every single f*&$ing time.
* Gabby telling me that if she gets sick, she’ll “fight real hard to kick the sickies out so she doesn’t die like Matatoe”.
* I still ask “Why Matteo?”
* I think of Matt every time I look at the sofa where I held him tight, crying, trying to keep him warm even though he was dead… before they made us leave the house that morning so they could take him from us.
* I think of Matt every time I walk over the tile floor where Dan tried doing CPR on him… even though we both knew he had been dead for hours.
* My heart aches now more than ever for Rocco that he probably won't ever know or remember all the fun he had with his twin and best friend. They were the perfect duo!
* It is also painful to know that Gabby remembers her little brother and has specific memories. That she doesn't truly understand death yet. And, that she misses him so very much, and doesn't understand why he can't be here still or why he won't just come back to us.
* If Dan or I discipline Gabby or Rocco for doing something dangerous that they could get hurt from doing… the first thing Gabby will say is “Will we die like Matatoe?”
* I check on Gabby & Rocco constantly throughout the night to make sure they are still breathing. Seriously. Probably every 2-3 hours.
* Gabby constantly asking “Will Matteo always be small? Will he never grow again? Why?”
* I replay that dreadful morning over in my head… a lot. Depends on the day as to how many times it replays. The foggy chaos of that morning is still incredibly heavy on my heart.
* I still wish with all my heart that I could turn back time and do anything… ANYTHING… to have prevented Matt’s death. Sometimes I feel such a heavy guilt come over me… it can be completely overwhelming. I feel like I should have known something was different, or I should have done this or that. And, now I can’t do anything… because he’s gone. Forever.
* I still wish with all my heart we would have an answer as to why he died.
* I still hate hearing people say “He’s home now… with God.” Not many people say this. And, I know they have good intentions in saying it. But, honestly – it makes me angry. This was his home… here with us. And, WE were his family.

And now we have two more big hurdles to cross in the next week or so.

We will be celebrating Rocco and Matteo’s 2nd Birthday this weekend. Only, Matt won’t be here and it will be painfully obvious.

And, hopefully sooner rather than later we’ll be welcoming our new baby girl. Only, Matt won’t be here to welcome her with us. We’ll never get to see him interact with her – and he loved babies. LOVED them. He would get down on his hands and knees and just stare at babies and he would coo at them and touch their little faces ever so gently. We got to see him do this to a little baby boy just one week before he died. We were so certain he was going to be the most perfect, little, big brother ever.

Sometimes, I just need to share it as it is… this is our reality.