Dear loved ones,
I am honored you take the time to read our recap each year! I enjoy the practice of reflecting on & finding words for the past 11.5 months. 2025 felt at times, boring…and I am so so so grateful for that.
Writing this has reinforced what I realized earlier this year: I do not remember portions of July 2024 – July 2025. Apparently that is what grief does to your mind & memories. I feel a certain guilt much of the early days of Mateo’s life or Luke’s prime toddler days are a fog; I also feel relief that same fog encompassed some of the darkness after Kaiden’s death.
Life currently feels like equal parts chaos & joy: the duality of life & loss while raising our boys. I have an emerging awareness I will look back on this chapter of life & realize these were the days. How lucky we are to be in them now.
Thank you again for taking the time to read these words which helped me remember, helped me feel, helped me find gratitude for the ‘boring’ chaos & joy of 2025.
We ended 2024 & started the New Year in the Texas Hill Country with the Reinerts (Eric’s sister & her precious family) – it was simply beautiful:
Luke played with his cousins on the outdoor pickleball & basketball courts, we took turns cooking meals, we stayed in lounge clothes all day, we drank good wine. I love this picture as 1) I actually remember taking it, sitting there snuggling with Mateo as he mentally calculated the days until he could run wild with his cousins and 2) it is the first of innumerable times this year where I saw a burst of light. In this photo, I see both our twins.
We had a very quick re-entry to reality with what is now referred to as the “Great Sickness of 2025”. My bestie, Amy, and her family were visiting for the husbands to run the Houston Half Marathon. The week leading up to it, various kids had sniffles but we powered through. The husbands did in fact run the half marathon (way to go guys!) while the rest of us seemingly created a super bug. We even captured a picture of the petri dish where this sickness multiplied:
Every single person on this couch left the weekend febrile, full of snot & exhausted. But I still loved having all of our boys together in one place. When I became febrile to 104 with symptoms of mastitis on top of the presumed flu, we all collectively decided we loved each other so much that it was time for them to leave early. That is true friendship! We frantically rescheduled Luke’s birthday party which had been planned to include the Schelles.
Then, the epic snow day of 2025! In my 30+ years as a native Houstonian, I have never seen glorious, ground sticking snow like this. Luckily, Aunt Amy had just gifted a pair of toddler snow boot hand-me-downs which fit LT perfectly! Our now 7-year-old rescue Weimaraner, Rugenn, loved the snow – but only when wearing his coat made by Grandma Kathy!
After the historic snow, it was straight into Martinez Family birthday week which included a special visit from The Jolly Trolley for LT’s birthday party & a visit to The Color Factory:
At the end of birthday week, Eric turned a milestone birthday… I’ll leave it at that 😉 Thanks to the grace of grandparent childcare by the best Grandma and Papaw around, we were able to take an adults only trip with several friends to Eric’s natural habitat… Las Vegas. It was truly the best time: a girls spa day, boys golfing, shows, good food & all around tons of fun. It was a great group of people who all just adore Eric:
In the spring, Grandma Kathy & Eric ran the Rodeo Run 10K while Papaw & I walked with the two little cowboys. We all enjoyed our traditional meal of (Pinkerton’s!) BBQ after the event. It was Mateo’s first time trying BBQ with all of the messy sides – he’s a fan:
The boys continue to love their school. We are so lucky to have a place full of people who love our boys so well. Buuuuut the boys did NOT love spring school photos. These two have such a special bond… hilariously captured in this photo which will surely be making an appearance at each of their graduations & rehearsal dinners someday:
Spring was rounded out by moments of beauty & visits from people we love:
A few reflections on the first year of grief – feel free to skip ahead if it’s understandably not your thing in a holiday card – rejoin us after the next page break line:
We are only 17 months past Kaiden’s death. It still feels unreal to type. I miss him every moment of every day. He is incorporated into everything: into the happy moments, into the sad moments, into the moments when Mateo reaches a milestone & I wonder if his identical twin would have been truly identical.
As an enneagram five, I devour grief content as if surely mastering a knowledge of grief will make it easier. It hasn’t. But it has made me feel less alone. I have a group of ‘sad mom friends’ on instagram who feel like best friends even though we’ve never met. I have heard a familiar sadness in podcasts such as Anderson Cooper’s “All There Is” (it is absolutely worth a listen). The magic of the internet has connected us with other parents who have also faced Twin Anemia Polycythemia Sequence (TAPS). Moments of heaviness at work – at the hospital where all of our children were born – feel different. I am no longer a stranger to sadness. I feel better able to sit in it with others. Sometimes it feels like a super power & other times it just super sucks. Being a twinless twin mom is perhaps the ultimate masterclass in duality.
As we approached the time between the one year anniversary of our TAPS diagnosis & the twin’s first birthday, it felt like I was bracing for impact. If you are on the mailing list for The Kaiden Paul Foundation, you have seen this excerpt & photo which perfectly captured July 1: Mateo’s birthday & the day Kaiden was stillborn.
Right before the twin’s birthday, I was asked to be a guest on a loss mom friend’s podcast. We recorded the episode exactly one week after the twin’s birthday. It felt like poetic timing. I am really proud of it: you can take a listen here. I wonder how old our boys will be if/when they listen someday. I hope they are proud too. We are all in this together. I am ever evolving & ever working to develop the tools to be a space for their future questions & whatever feelings may come.
The summer included a lot of beauty & boyhood amidst the grief:
On the one year anniversary of Kaiden’s funeral, we took our first annual “Kaiden’s trip” to a gorgeous rental property in Central Texas (again with the Reinert Family). We spent time all together; I felt both the weight of absence & paradoxical ever presence of Kaiden the entire weekend.
That same weekend, work done by the The Kaiden Paul Foundation (in conjunction with TAPS Support out of The Netherlands) was presented by my TAPS friend, Stephanie Ernst, at the Twin Congress 2025 in Sri Lanka. Eric & I are so proud that just one year after Kaiden’s funeral, he & Mateo made their international debut at a scientific symposium:
Throughout the year, we remained loyal Dynamo & Dash fans. The boys truly live their best lives at games! Our household (or at least a certain member *coughERICcough*) are extremely excited about the upcoming World Cup!
In October, Eric & I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. It feels like just yesterday we got COVID style married; yet somehow it also feels like we have been married 50 years & have lived lifetimes together. We are different people now than when we got married – shaped by growth, death, parenting – somehow we still really love each other & that’s pretty wonderful. We celebrated by taking a trip to New York City; we ate our way through several Michelin Stars & went to the Peloton Studio for live classes.
Eric & I aspire to have a much more boring next 5 years of marriage than the first 5 years.
… and then we were back in time for Halloween! Our life always feels like a circus but somehow we make it the Greatest Show 😉 Luke as the ringleader & Mateo as the strong man felt quite accurate!
Other obligatory updates: Eric & I are both still at the same jobs. And I think we’ll just leave the update as that for now.
Ari & Rugenn do their part in adding to the general chaos. Ari is certainly aging but still loves taking naps in a cozy blanket or wrapped in rays of sunshine. Rugenn is endless energy & loves that his human brothers are learning how to play fetch with him. The boys love sharing with the dogs: both food & dress code.
Heading into 2026, I find myself living with the mantra ‘presence without expectation’. Feeling the chaos & joy all together. Loving what we have while simultaneously missing Kaiden. I feel his light everywhere.
This holiday season we wish you peace. Being where you are. With the people you are with.
Noticing the light all around.
with love,
Emilie (on behalf of all 5 of us)
EPM 