Juan Rodriguez’s family forges on after 1-year-old twins die in hot car tragedy

The chubby cheeks and bright eyes of the Rodriguez’s lost twins gaze out from photos lining their mantle, keeping watch over a line of brightly colored Christmas stockings as the family prepares for a fourth holiday without them.

But amid the ghosts and pain that will forever haunt the Rockland County couple after 1-year-olds Luna and Phoenix were tragically forgotten, and died, inside their father’s car, new life has emerged.

Marissa Quattrone Rodriguez and her husband, Juan, 43, have welcomed not one but two new daughters since the July 2019 horror.

“When I got pregnant again it felt like a sign to just keep hope alive,” Quattrone Rodriguez, 41, told The Post. 

“[The girls] have been the hope that we have needed to keep us going.”

Along with two new stockings for their daughters — one born in 2020 and another in August — reminders of Luna and Phoenix are everywhere, especially at Christmas.

Snapshots of their toothless grins, or the twins playing in the grass, adorn ornaments hung from their tree, while another shaped like angel wings hangs on a branch above a shadow box featuring two tiny white high chairs.

Alongside the empty seats inside the decorated box is a heart-wrenching message:

“Christmas in Heaven/What do they do?/They come down to Earth/To spend it with you/Save them a seat/Just two empty chairs/You may not see them/But they will be there.”

“When we first lost our twins, I didn’t know where to turn and I didn’t want to talk to anybody. . . . I wasn’t talking to friends, family, or even anybody that reached out trying to help. I just didn’t care about anything,” Quattrone Rodriguez recalled.

Juan Rodriguez, a father of five, is still “not in the right headspace” to talk about the loss.

He was supposed to have dropped his babies off at daycare, but instead, drove to his job in the Bronx with Luna and Phoenix in the back seat.

He left them in the car on a sweltering day, not realizing the deadly mistake until he emerged eight hours later.

He was initially arrested but later cleared of wrongdoing.

“It’s just too much for him most of the time,” Quattrone Rodriguez explained.

Along with their 3-year-old and 4-month-old daughters, the couple have an 8-year-old son, as well as a 16-year-old daughter and 21-year-old son from a past relationship of Juan’s.

To cope, the couple became advocates, pushing for legislation to prevent children from dying in hot cars while counseling others who found themselves on the same hellish journey.

So far in 2023, 28 children have died of heatstroke in the United States after being left in cars, according to data collected by NoHeatStroke.org. In 2022, 33 perished the same way. 

This summer, Quattrone Rodriguez consoled an Australian father who lost his own child in a similar manner months earlier.

“I speak to dozens of other parents here across the country regularly who have experienced the same loss, and I will continue to make myself available to those people who want someone to talk to about it. We are hoping to prevent this tragedy, but I’m also here for those who now grieve,” she said.

In 2019, the Rodriguezes traveled to Washington D.C. to push for passage of the Hot Cars Act, which would require the Secretary of Transportation to force all new cars to have child safety alert systems that would warn the driver when a child is left behind.

“This kind of tragedy can be prevented with the assistance of new technology that can be placed in vehicles very easily,” Quattrone Rodriguez insisted

The bill has languished, but the Rodriguezes continue the fight.

Advocacy “has been the most helpful thing for us,” Quattrone Rodriguez said.

But others cruelly won’t let the family move forward.

Quattrone Rodriguez declined to share details or photos of her living children, fearful of online trolls and others who have bizarrely accused them of having more children to “replace” Luna and Phoenix. 

Some still don’t understand how Juan Rodriguez could have made such a grave mistake. 

“Sadly, people will still automatically say, ‘How could you forget?’ and ‘How stupid could you be?’ and they do not understand that this kind of tragedy can happen to anyone,” Quattrone Rodriguez said.

“It’s tough. Every day is still difficult. . . . But I feel like I see and feel signs from Luna and Phoenix, and that they’re still with me,” she said.