Snips and snails and puppy dog tails. That's what little boys are made of.
Part I. Unexpected Arrivals and Tragic Departures
Alessandro Rafaele Bellarmine was the last male child born to Natalia and Giacomo Bellarmine, arriving at 4:57 P.M. on June 12, 1991, in Casale Monferrato, Italy. The couple already had a daughter, Sofia, and a son Matteo, but wanted to round out their brood without having a traditional large Italian family. The pregnancy was a surprising discovery for his parents, who thought that their family was complete after Natalia turned forty-five.
Despite having several miscarriages previously before this unexpected pregnancy, it was uncomplicated and their joys were doubled when an ultrasound revealed they were expecting twins. As Natalia reached thirty-eight weeks of pregnancy, the amniotic sac surrounding one of her babies broke prematurely. After a nurse midwife assessed Natalia, she deemed that prolonged labor would be stressful on the twins and the leaking amniotic fluid would expose her uterus to infection. Natalia was admitted to hospital where her OB/GYN performed an emergency Cesarean section. In less than an hour after arriving at the maternity unit, the twin boys were delivered three minutes apart. Gianluca Marco, was pulled out first, then Alessandro Rafaele.
The four pound, five ounce twins were healthy babies that were completely identical in every way except for the white, shimmering caul covering newborn Alessandro's face. The boys' Nonna Maria, had told the couple about its significance, but Natalia and Giacomo dismissed it as "an old woman's superstitions." Still, Nonna Maria had insisted on preserving Alessandro's caul despite her daughter and son-in-laws dismissal of her superstitions. Her Mama had believed that being born with a caul not only made a person psychic, but protected them from drowning.
Alessandro's parents did not want to know about the old ways, because they were more focused on the joys of their new roles as the parents of twins and the task of integrating them into their family. After they gained weight in the nursery, the twins' pediatrician deemed Alessandro and Gianluca healthy enough to leave the maternity unit together with their family. Before anyone knew it, the two boys became increasingly clever and adventurous two-year old toddlers. If there were any qualities that were comparable between them, Alessandro was calmer in temperament, but that attribute was constantly muted by Gianluca's intensity and impulsive behavior.
Natalia and Giacomo probably should have listened closely to Nonna's explanation of what Alessandro's caul meant, because it was a dire harbinger of what was to come.
The Bellarmine home had become busy with a flurry of preparation for the twins' third birthday party in June. It was a rare moment for Natalia to get her two active boys to lay down for a nap. When she was sure the twins were soundly asleep, she was able to pick up the telephone in the kitchen to chat with her sister about their plans for the birthday party while fixing dinner. Distracted by the running water for the risotto, Natalia didn't notice little Gianluca waking up early from his nap and wandering to the door leading to the patio. Two weeks earlier, he learned how to unlock every door in the house.
Even though Giacomo installed child locks on the patio door leading to the family pool, Gianluca bypassed it by squeezing the knob harder between his small hands. Natalia hung up the phone after a few minutes to check on the twins only to find Gianluca's toddler bed was empty, and in a panic, fled from the bedroom and began running towards the partially opened patio door. Less than 10 feet away, she found Gianluca floating face down in the water of the family swimming pool. As a first responder, her immediate reaction was to pull him out of the water and restore his breathing. Finding no pulse, she made a desperate attempt to restart his heart and bring the impish green light back to Gianluca's eyes, by initiating cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
When the rescue squad arrived, they found Natalia wailing inconsolably as she held Gianluca because the light in his eyes had long since faded.
Instead of the happy birthday party they had prepared for, the entire Bellarmine clan gathered for a final, sad goodbye for one of their own. Natalia and Giacomo felt completely numb as the day arrived for Gianluca's wake and funeral. So many offerings of condolences, cards and flowers were given to ease their pain from caring family and friends, but that wasn't any comfort for the insurmountable level of grief and the guilt they felt dealing with the loss of their son. He would have been three like Alessandro, his twin. He should have been laughing and playing with the new toys that had been left in the colorful wrapping paper and hidden away as they waited for his birthday to arrive.
In place of Gianluca's laugher and rambunctious playing were sounds of mourning. his birthday presents abandoned in exchange for funeral chrysanthemums. The time frame of the death of a child was in complete opposition with a celebration of his birth, so words became uncomfortably awkward for family and friends who didn't have the right words to express to the couple who'd lost their child. So they tried comforting the family the best way they knew how, arriving in the form of baked goods and warm casseroles left uneaten on the kitchen counter until they were thrown away. For a long time, tears of mourning replaced the joys that Alessandro's family used to take pleasure in.
It was even harder for Natalia and Giacomo to comfort their remaining children, particularly Alessandro. A few days after the funeral his parents explained to him why he could no longer see or talk to Gianluca any more because he drowned in the pool and had died. Even though his Mamma and Pappa couldn't see him, it would never make his parents or older siblings feel comfortable knowing that he could see and talk animatedly with the spirit of his dead brother as though he was very much alive. To Alessandro, Gianluca looked like the same little boy he always was, and because of his parents could not sense what was obvious to him through their sorrow they ignored Alessandro wild claims that his brother's spirit was following him from place to place just as he had when he was still alive. Grief had a strange way of closing off some people's minds, but it wasn't so for Alessandro.
One day when he was playing in the garden, Alessandro followed Gianluca to the edge of the swimming pool that was now completely drained and left dormant after his brother's untimely passing. The three year old boy stood frozen in a trance like state as he witnessed a horrific re-enactment of Gianluca's drowning as it unfolded. In a series of fractured images within his sensitive mind, Alessandro silently witnessed his twin brother awakening in his bed in the room they shared, slipping past his Mamma while she relaying the party plans to her sister, and successfully opened the safety lock on the patio door to slip outside.
Alessandro's feet teetered on the ledge of the empty pool as his fingers reached out to touch the colorful spectrum of shimmering light Gianluca's spirit became when it vacated the shell of his earthly body that still floated lifelessly in the water. Entranced by the rippling colors, he was blissfully unaware that he was about to tumble into the empty pool. While washing dishes at the kitchen sink, Natalia realized her son was in danger, and quickly ran outside in the nick of time to grab him by the back of his shirt before he could fall. Although she prevented a terrible accident from occurring, Natalia appeared shaken from the near miss as she carried a hysterical Alessandro back to the safety of their home. As he cried for his twin brother that was forever gone, she cradled her son and rocked him in the chair, until he fell asleep.
But not even death could sever the bond between Alessandro and Gianluca.
Time passed, and along with it came the support and some tough love from Nonna Maria, who offered gentle reminders to her daughter and son-in-law. When that didn't work, she reiterated to them about their responsibility for the three surviving children left in their family. The realities of life slowly rolled the gray pall of death cloaking their house in grief completely away. All the things around them that stagnated during the Bellarmines' period of mourning, was replaced by the vibrant colors of life.
The turning point towards healing and acceptance was finally reached when Giacomo hired contractors to fill the empty swimming pool with fertile Casale Monferrato soil. From that point on, anyone who came to visit their home would no longer see the abandoned swimming pool that had become a glaring reflection of how empty their lives were without Gianluca. Instead their family and friends would see the new olive saplings Gianluca planted for each of his children, but especially for their little boy that he and his wife had to bury long before his time.
As they grew and thrived, the trees would always be a sign that they as a family had endured their loss together and overcame it together. Moving on, they would no longer focus on death, but on life.
Alessandro Rafaele Bellarmine was the last male child born to Natalia and Giacomo Bellarmine, arriving at 4:57 P.M. on June 12, 1991, in Casale Monferrato, Italy. The couple already had a daughter, Sofia, and a son Matteo, but wanted to round out their brood without having a traditional large Italian family. The pregnancy was a surprising discovery for his parents, who thought that their family was complete after Natalia turned forty-five.
Despite having several miscarriages previously before this unexpected pregnancy, it was uncomplicated and their joys were doubled when an ultrasound revealed they were expecting twins. As Natalia reached thirty-eight weeks of pregnancy, the amniotic sac surrounding one of her babies broke prematurely. After a nurse midwife assessed Natalia, she deemed that prolonged labor would be stressful on the twins and the leaking amniotic fluid would expose her uterus to infection. Natalia was admitted to hospital where her OB/GYN performed an emergency Cesarean section. In less than an hour after arriving at the maternity unit, the twin boys were delivered three minutes apart. Gianluca Marco, was pulled out first, then Alessandro Rafaele.
The four pound, five ounce twins were healthy babies that were completely identical in every way except for the white, shimmering caul covering newborn Alessandro's face. The boys' Nonna Maria, had told the couple about its significance, but Natalia and Giacomo dismissed it as "an old woman's superstitions." Still, Nonna Maria had insisted on preserving Alessandro's caul despite her daughter and son-in-laws dismissal of her superstitions. Her Mama had believed that being born with a caul not only made a person psychic, but protected them from drowning.
Alessandro's parents did not want to know about the old ways, because they were more focused on the joys of their new roles as the parents of twins and the task of integrating them into their family. After they gained weight in the nursery, the twins' pediatrician deemed Alessandro and Gianluca healthy enough to leave the maternity unit together with their family. Before anyone knew it, the two boys became increasingly clever and adventurous two-year old toddlers. If there were any qualities that were comparable between them, Alessandro was calmer in temperament, but that attribute was constantly muted by Gianluca's intensity and impulsive behavior.
Natalia and Giacomo probably should have listened closely to Nonna's explanation of what Alessandro's caul meant, because it was a dire harbinger of what was to come.
The Bellarmine home had become busy with a flurry of preparation for the twins' third birthday party in June. It was a rare moment for Natalia to get her two active boys to lay down for a nap. When she was sure the twins were soundly asleep, she was able to pick up the telephone in the kitchen to chat with her sister about their plans for the birthday party while fixing dinner. Distracted by the running water for the risotto, Natalia didn't notice little Gianluca waking up early from his nap and wandering to the door leading to the patio. Two weeks earlier, he learned how to unlock every door in the house.
Even though Giacomo installed child locks on the patio door leading to the family pool, Gianluca bypassed it by squeezing the knob harder between his small hands. Natalia hung up the phone after a few minutes to check on the twins only to find Gianluca's toddler bed was empty, and in a panic, fled from the bedroom and began running towards the partially opened patio door. Less than 10 feet away, she found Gianluca floating face down in the water of the family swimming pool. As a first responder, her immediate reaction was to pull him out of the water and restore his breathing. Finding no pulse, she made a desperate attempt to restart his heart and bring the impish green light back to Gianluca's eyes, by initiating cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
When the rescue squad arrived, they found Natalia wailing inconsolably as she held Gianluca because the light in his eyes had long since faded.
Instead of the happy birthday party they had prepared for, the entire Bellarmine clan gathered for a final, sad goodbye for one of their own. Natalia and Giacomo felt completely numb as the day arrived for Gianluca's wake and funeral. So many offerings of condolences, cards and flowers were given to ease their pain from caring family and friends, but that wasn't any comfort for the insurmountable level of grief and the guilt they felt dealing with the loss of their son. He would have been three like Alessandro, his twin. He should have been laughing and playing with the new toys that had been left in the colorful wrapping paper and hidden away as they waited for his birthday to arrive.
In place of Gianluca's laugher and rambunctious playing were sounds of mourning. his birthday presents abandoned in exchange for funeral chrysanthemums. The time frame of the death of a child was in complete opposition with a celebration of his birth, so words became uncomfortably awkward for family and friends who didn't have the right words to express to the couple who'd lost their child. So they tried comforting the family the best way they knew how, arriving in the form of baked goods and warm casseroles left uneaten on the kitchen counter until they were thrown away. For a long time, tears of mourning replaced the joys that Alessandro's family used to take pleasure in.
It was even harder for Natalia and Giacomo to comfort their remaining children, particularly Alessandro. A few days after the funeral his parents explained to him why he could no longer see or talk to Gianluca any more because he drowned in the pool and had died. Even though his Mamma and Pappa couldn't see him, it would never make his parents or older siblings feel comfortable knowing that he could see and talk animatedly with the spirit of his dead brother as though he was very much alive. To Alessandro, Gianluca looked like the same little boy he always was, and because of his parents could not sense what was obvious to him through their sorrow they ignored Alessandro wild claims that his brother's spirit was following him from place to place just as he had when he was still alive. Grief had a strange way of closing off some people's minds, but it wasn't so for Alessandro.
One day when he was playing in the garden, Alessandro followed Gianluca to the edge of the swimming pool that was now completely drained and left dormant after his brother's untimely passing. The three year old boy stood frozen in a trance like state as he witnessed a horrific re-enactment of Gianluca's drowning as it unfolded. In a series of fractured images within his sensitive mind, Alessandro silently witnessed his twin brother awakening in his bed in the room they shared, slipping past his Mamma while she relaying the party plans to her sister, and successfully opened the safety lock on the patio door to slip outside.
Alessandro's feet teetered on the ledge of the empty pool as his fingers reached out to touch the colorful spectrum of shimmering light Gianluca's spirit became when it vacated the shell of his earthly body that still floated lifelessly in the water. Entranced by the rippling colors, he was blissfully unaware that he was about to tumble into the empty pool. While washing dishes at the kitchen sink, Natalia realized her son was in danger, and quickly ran outside in the nick of time to grab him by the back of his shirt before he could fall. Although she prevented a terrible accident from occurring, Natalia appeared shaken from the near miss as she carried a hysterical Alessandro back to the safety of their home. As he cried for his twin brother that was forever gone, she cradled her son and rocked him in the chair, until he fell asleep.
But not even death could sever the bond between Alessandro and Gianluca.
Time passed, and along with it came the support and some tough love from Nonna Maria, who offered gentle reminders to her daughter and son-in-law. When that didn't work, she reiterated to them about their responsibility for the three surviving children left in their family. The realities of life slowly rolled the gray pall of death cloaking their house in grief completely away. All the things around them that stagnated during the Bellarmines' period of mourning, was replaced by the vibrant colors of life.
The turning point towards healing and acceptance was finally reached when Giacomo hired contractors to fill the empty swimming pool with fertile Casale Monferrato soil. From that point on, anyone who came to visit their home would no longer see the abandoned swimming pool that had become a glaring reflection of how empty their lives were without Gianluca. Instead their family and friends would see the new olive saplings Gianluca planted for each of his children, but especially for their little boy that he and his wife had to bury long before his time.
As they grew and thrived, the trees would always be a sign that they as a family had endured their loss together and overcame it together. Moving on, they would no longer focus on death, but on life.