Tragedy struck an innocent family when they found their toddler twins dead after their dad had put them to sleep the night before.
The family realized the twins weren’t in bed and began searching for them.
Soon after, their son yelled he had found the twins sleeping soundly, but the mom instantly realized something wasn’t right.
It’s never easy losing a child, let alone two. One family is left grasping to understand two untimely deaths that made no sense to them.
It was a typical day for the Myers-Starr family. Sadie, a mom of four, was at work until late at night while her partner Donn put their kids to sleep.
When she got home that night, she checked in on her kids and saw all four of them sleeping soundly. After seeing them safe and sound, she had dinner and slept.
At some point during the early morning, her twin toddlers, Aurora and Kellan, woke each other up to play. They did this often, and Sadie always thought it was a “twin thing.”
Toys would be everywhere whenever they’d wake up in the middle of the night. By the time Sadie and Donn woke up, they’d find the twins snuggled up next to each other in some random corner.
Things Turned Out Differently One Night
That fateful Friday night, however, the twins couldn’t have chosen a worse place to fall asleep. When Sadie, Donn, and their two older sons woke up the following morning, Aurora and Kellan were nowhere to be found.
Their older sons were already playing outside, assuming the twins were still asleep. When Donn checked on the twins, they immediately realized something was wrong.
The family began panicking, yelling for the twins. They ran up and down the street and went through every nook and corner of the house.
Finally, after minutes of searching, their son Axton yelled the most heartbreaking thing. After going through the twins’ room once more, he finally found them:
“Mommy, I found them! They are so silly – just sleeping in the toy box.”
Sadie’s heart jumped. “I knew something wasn’t right, but I also quickly realized it was already too late,” she admitted.
The toy box inside Aurora and Kellan’s room was an old wooden chest where they’d store their stuffed animals. The twins managed to take a couple of stuffed animals out while leaving some in to keep them comfortable.
Then, they lay inside the chest, head to toe, with one arm wrapped around each other. At some point during their sleep, something caused the lid of the old chest to close.
To Sadie’s horror, she discovered too late that these cedar chests are airtight when closed. Regardless of whether the twins realized they were trapped, there was no way for the rest of the family to hear, as the chest was also soundproof.
The Family is Crippled by the Loss
So, as Aurora and Kellan snuggled up next to each other, they slowly ran out of oxygen and passed away. The twins never knew what was happening, and the mom revealed her kids had a prolonged transition from sleeping to passing on.
“It makes no sense to me and never will,” the mom said of her twins’ deaths. The devastating loss has been detrimental to the family, and it hurts for the mourning parents to keep living.
However, they are determined to power through for the sake of their two sons. To make it a bit easier for their two older boys, they had them stay with family members while the parents struggled to cope with their immense loss.
Sadie has done everything to make the loss more bearable. She’s forced herself to believe that the universe chose them specifically to “protect them from some future tragedy,” or because they were “too perfect for this world.”
After everything, Sadie admits she’ll never get over losing her twins when they were only four. However, she finds comfort in knowing their entire family gave the twins the best four years possible and that they were lucky to be gifted with them, even for a short time.
Sadie’s sister Deanna started a GoFundMe for the family to give the four-year-old twins a proper goodbye. The fundraiser raised over $22,000 compared to its $10,000 goal.
Deanna said Sadie and Donn were the best parents – the kind “any good parent could be envious of.” They did everything they could to provide their children with the best lives.
The GoFundMe was meant to provide the family with enough money to mourn without having to think of going back to work so quickly after the tragedy. Deanna assured donors that every cent would go directly to Sadie and Donn so they could learn how to move forward from their heartbreaking situation.
In a similarly heartbreaking story, a 6-year-old boy vanished during a birthday party. Hours later, he was found lifeless.
Source: amomama
