Visiting the Deuce in the hospital was a kind of purgatory. I was able to be near my son, but I couldn’t hold him and touching him through the isolette was a limited activity. I learned how there is a hierarchy in the NICU according to the severity of a child’s condition, and just where the Deuce ranked. I didn’t know just how traumatic the ventilator was when we were visiting the NICU. The pandemic has given me a very different perspective, one that deepened my empathy for what Matthew went through.