When life breaks your heart, let people hold the pieces, then choose, again and again, to build something bright in the space love left behind. They married in a whiteout on March 15, 2020. There were blizzard winds in Mammoth, and the pandemic closed in, so the venue changed at the last minute. It still felt like a fairy tale. Two weeks earlier, they’d learned Samantha was pregnant. When the world shut down, they flew home to Las Vegas, postponing Jamaica and settling into a new life: he worked from home and delivered pizzas at night; she kept nursing shifts until the very day before labor. In May, they heard the words, “It’s a boy,” and he glowed at the thought of the family name carried forward.
They bought their first house that September and painted a tiny room for the baby. On October 22, as a presidential debate droned on, Samantha’s water broke. After 36 hard hours, Cameron arrived at 2:51 a.m., small and perfect. The room changed shape in an instant; love enlarged it. Then grief stepped in. Samantha’s father, Marty, fell, and by December 27, with snow-gray skies outside, they watched him slip away. He had Parkinson’s, and they were grateful he’d held his grandson and made it to their wedding. To give Samantha rest, he took night duty with Cam. Their son started to smile, and the quiet hours felt like a secret club, just father and son learning each other.
On January 5, Samantha’s mom offered to keep the baby overnight so they could exhale over sushi. At 2:21 a.m., the phone shook the night. “The baby isn’t breathing.” They raced to the high-rise a mile away, but the scene told the truth when they arrived. EMTs came. Police came. Minutes later, the words nobody should ever hear: Cameron was gone. SIDS. The hallway filled with sobs and prayers and rage. He remembers his fists against the wall and the officers stepping in, remembers the terrible stillness of a tiny body hours later, cold, rigid, wrapped in a blanket that couldn’t warm him.
The weeks that followed blurred. Family poured in from California. Notes of love appeared on Post-its around the house and stayed there, like small anchors. Workplaces pooled PTO. Friends brought meals, time, quiet. He tried sleeping on the nursery floor to be near what was missing. Kindness kept them breathing when grief attempted to take the air.
When the house grew quiet, they flew to Florida for a few days, Clearwater, Orlando, Siesta Key. A mural in the hotel read, “You are exactly where you need to be.” They took it as a nudge from Cam. They got matching tattoos, wandered when they could, stayed inside when they couldn’t. Returning home reopened the absence. By late February, they returned to work.
Then another call: his uncle had taken his own life after a surgery was delayed again and again. It felt like blow after blow. In his hometown, he froze in public when a familiar face approached. Grief can turn ordinary moments into earthquakes. On Easter Sunday, a thin blue line appeared on a test. Then another. They held each other and cried, joy, fear, hope, all tangled. Pregnancy after loss is a long, fragile bridge. Every week brings a new what-if. They told themselves Cam and Marty had sent guardians of light their way, and tried to believe it. “Lightning doesn’t strike twice,” someone said, and they tucked the sentence into their pockets.
On November 4, 2021, five weeks early and two minutes apart, Rory Wayne and Reagan Cameron arrived, 18 inches each, two tiny proofs that joy can return. They called them their rainbow twins, not because the storm was forgotten, but because color dared to appear again. They know now that you can’t control what life throws at you. You can only choose how to meet it. They decide to speak Cameron’s name, to raise awareness about SIDS, to accept help, and to keep going.
The support, family, coworkers, friends, and strangers were a net they didn’t know they had until they fell. The twins brought laughter back, little feet and midnight feedings, the soft rhythm of a home healing. They miss their son every day. They also honor him by living the days he didn’t get honest, grateful, and brave. Some nights still stretch long; some mornings lift like a curtain. But love keeps teaching them how to stay.
