What an odd day it began with. I was working a night job in order to stay with my twins during the day. As I lay down on the couch in order to catch a snooze - all of a sudden I felt an incessant tugging-yank, yank, yank! Huh? Must be Catherine pulling my hair as Carmella couldn't stand up yet. "Cathy, Mommy is sooo tired, let me sleep a bit!" YANK! YANK!
"Oh, Catherine-- please let me sleep." YANK!!! I turn to face my yanking bandit and who is it but Carmella- grinning from ear to ear! Holding onto my hair for dear life--she's standing!!! Of course, as any new mother would do, I called everyone I knew to bore them with the details!
Off to work I go-- I HATE this job-- wish I could quit it- but still like being at home during the day. I'm supposed to be cashier, but they have me sweeping floors, getting my butt pinched by strangers, making beef sandwiches and dreaming of better days. Around 1 a.m. my manager says I have a phone call. Huh? No one calls me here. "Bridget, this is Jan (a tenant in the building we stayed in and owned)-- something is wrong with one of the twins." Before she went any further I said, "Carmella is dying. I have to go."
I don't know why I knew it. I just did. Calling my mother who saw the twins for the first time two weeks prior, I told her that Carmella was dying. "How do you know? Bridget! You are getting overanxious. You know nothing. It's probably nothing!" I replied, "Carmella is dying at Ford's Hospital." (How did I know this? Jan didn't tell me which hospital.) I hung up on her and quickly ran to my van. Driving at dangerous speeds, running very risky lights, excessing the limit on the freeways by 30 miles+, and never being stopped. Crying on the freeway, begging God not to take my little one, knowing in my heart that she is leaving...I don't quite know how to explain it.
When I reached the hospital, they ushered me into a private room- It was filled with all seven of my crying brothers and sisters, my mother holding Catherine (how odd that looked to me), teary eyed tenants of the building we owned, and Warren looking so lost and forlorn. Warren said, "I don't know what happened. They were crying for bottles. I put the bottles on the stove and went back to the crib. Carmella was laying there--still. I gave her mouth to mouth-- I don't know what happened." A nurse enters and asks the tenants to leave.
My mother, holding Catherine, is startled when Catherine starts to jerk in her arms. Moments later, the same caring nurse rushes in to tell us that Carmella is breathing again. Catherine, wide awake, asks for Daddy's arms. Warren takes her and seemingly minutes later-- she is fast asleep. Silence in the room.
Catherine, in her sleep, begins to jerk again. The nurse once more enters and excitingly says Carmella is breathing again-- she's not giving up. (In my mind, that meant she wasn't breathing before). I take Catherine from Warren- willing her to stay awake. Catherine jerks 4 or 5 more times while I am holding her-- and then....all of a sudden, she is limp in my arms. I turn to Warren and said, "She's dead."
As tears stream down my face, holding my Catherine, the doctor walks in.
Searching the faces of my seven brothers and sisters, he seems to be at a loss. "Who's the mother?" He asks. For some reason, I felt if I didn't answer, then it couldn't be true. My Carmella would still be alive if I didn't look at the doctor. I look at my mother, my brothers and sisters, all staring at me- acknowledgment that they are not the one he is looking for, and haltingly look at the doctor. He places a chair in front of me, sits down, and with such pain in his eyes (or is he tired?) tells me that he is so sorry. That they did the best that they could....my mind wanders..."Nonononononono".. He talks about an autopsy is needed--"Nonononononono"...asks Warren if we would like to hold her before they take her. ("Where? Where are they taking my baby?") Warren nods and the doctor asks my crying family to please leave the room.
The nurse, who now seems like family, brings our baby into the room--tears rolling down her face. I take Carmella from her, holding her one last time, and look down into my stilled child's face. "It's not Carmella." I tell Warren. He nods, "She's not smiling." The remnants of rescusitation efforts still surrounding her little body- tubes down her throat- leave no facet for denial for one who doesn't want to believe. She feels so heavy! With her spirit gone, her body weighs 50 pounds heavier to me....as heavy as my heart is now feeling.
After we said our goodbyes-- Warren singing her favorite song to her ("You are my sunshine, my only sunshine..") we reluctantly let the nurse take her. The nurse returns with a lock of her hair- that flaming red hair, to hold onto.
And thus, that lock of hair is what I hold today, knowing that she is in a better place than all of us.
The autopsy showed she had very little lining of the heart. She shouldn't have lived past birth-and yet we had her so much longer. With her condition,encardialfibroelastosis, had we known of it (specifically the doctors known of it), they said she wouldn't have lived past two years on a life support machine. They don't know how she lived as long as she did on her own.

Ironically, it was the standing up earlier in the day that taxed her heart too much.