Remembering Matt

When people ask, “How are you?” it rarely carries any meaning. Nine times out of 10, “How are you?” is a pleasantry, an automatic question with an automatic response.

That wasn’t the case with Matt Rosin. When Rosin asked how you were doing, he looked you in the eye, gave a reassuring smile and genuinely wanted to know, his friends and family say.

Now five months after Rosin’s death at 19, his loved ones have not forgotten the small daily gestures that touched those around him in big ways, and neither has the Bellmore-Merrick community. More than 300 people attended his funeral, which was standing-room-only. Weeks later, Calhoun High School’s wind ensemble opened a GoFundMe page to create a memorial plaque for the band room in the fall, and raised $1,400 in about 30 hours, said Edward Tumminelli, Calhoun’s band teacher. Social media is still exploding with memorial posts, popularizing #MattyRoMondays and a widespread desire to #LiveLifeLikeMattyRo.

The accident

On Oct. 23, Rosin’s family was halfway down the New Jersey Turnpike to visit Matt for the University of Delaware’s family weekend when the phone rang. He had been in a bicycle accident. They rushed to Newark’s Christiana Hospital confused. Matt hadn’t brought a bicycle to school.

“He was hit by a bicyclist,” explained Debra Hertz-Levenstein, his aunt. “You think, how could so much damage happen? But the bicyclist was reckless. He had come down an incline, was speeding very fast in and out of people on a crowded patio, and hit him square on. [Rosin] fell back, cracked his skull in six places, immediately went into cardiac arrest, and would have expired on the spot had a couple of students not immediately performed CPR.”

He underwent 20 surgeries at Christiana and later New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital, including two craniotomies, removing each side of his skull to reduce brain swelling. From October to March, he suffered a cardiac arrest, a stroke, bacterial meningitis, a collapsed lung, hydrocephalus and fungus in the brain, Hertz-Levenstein said.

Hertz-Levenstein began posting Facebook updates with the hashtag #PrayForMattyRo to inform a few of his friends, but quickly learned that more people were reading than she predicted.

#PrayForMattyRo had flooded social media.

“Hundreds of people were following,” Hertz-Levenstein continued. “We actually did not realize how many lives he touched until the accident.”

Though Rosin originally showed signs of improvement, the hydrocephalus, or an accumulation of fluid in the brain, reversed the progress. He died on March 23, surrounded by his family.

A regular high-schooler

Rosin arrived at Calhoun bright-eyed and shy. After school, he liked watching movies starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy and cooking with his family, especially kale and quinoa salad.

“We have a very small family,” said Terri Hertz-Rosin, Matt’s mother. “It was really just me, my daughter, my sister and him. We were friends, we weren’t just mother and son.”

Though quiet, Matt quickly made friends through his friendliness and compassion.

“After school, I always hated having to walk home,” said Michelle Chin, his friend. “Fortunately, Matt lived in the same direction as me, and having him there turned the journey into something fun.”

“He did his best to make everyone he spoke to feel special,” added Max Mogel, another friend. “To see how many people touched him or were touched by him is breathtaking.”

Rosin loved music. He listened to Florida Georgia Line, Taylor Swift, Sean Mendes, Paramore, Fall Out Boy and Lady Antebellum with his best friend and sister, Halli.

“At home he was definitely everything but shy,” Halli said. “He was very theatrical and animated. We would do this really weird thing where we would act out songs that we both knew.”

Though he started learning the saxophone three years later than his peers, Rosin was determined to play music at the high school level, even on top of a schedule of honors and Advanced Placement courses.

“When Matt first came in as a ninth-grader, he was quiet,” Tumminelli said. “He didn’t show his personality. I started to see him smile more in 10th grade. And then when he made wind ensemble, forget it.”

“Whenever you walk into a new environment you tend to be closed off and shy, and that was exactly how I was,” said Alix Greenblatt, another saxophonist. “Matt managed to make me feel like I was already part of this family.”

“He was just a gentle person,” Tumminelli added. “Not a mean bone in his body.”

Rosin ran for a band officer position his senior year, and Tumminelli never forgot the opening to his speech. “He said, ‘I’m Matt Rosin, and when I came into this band I had zero friends. After last year, you’re all my friends. I have 60 friends.’ That stood out, just how he loved.”

The band dedicated a song in his memory and showed a montage of pictures at the spring concert. Several of Rosin’s former classmates spoke.

In June, his family presented the first Matthew Rosin Memorial Scholarship at Calhoun’s Senior Awards Night. The scholarship is intended for students who will carry Rosin’s spirit forward through a commitment to becoming better individuals and having a positive influence on others.

Greenblatt and Allesandra Reilly were the first recipients.

“As his aunt read off the credentials of the award, the only thought I had in my mind was, who could possibly live up to his amazing standards?” Greenblatt said. “To be even close to the kind of person Matt was seemed impossible. I’m honored to have received the award.”

The man on campus

Rosin attended Delaware’s Honors College in the fall of 2014 as a sophomore because of AP credits, and he did not slow down. He planned to triple major in psychology, communications and advertising, not to mention his many clubs.

“It was like he became a different person,” Hertz-Rosin said. “He was so outgoing. He wanted to be part of everything.”

Rosin joined the Student Centers Programming Advisory Board, a group that planned entertainment and student-run activities, and Senior Fellows, a club that organized events for seniors in the honors program. He wanted to become a resident adviser.

“He loved the place,” Halli added. “I’ve never seen a freshman with so many people.”

“He cared for every single person he met,” said Matthew Rocha, a college friend. “He would do anything to help someone, even if they were a stranger. Even though I only knew him for a year, he had such a lasting impression on my life.”

“He’d call me every night from college,” Hertz-Rosin said. “I told him, ‘You don’t have to call me every day; it’s OK if you’re with your friends or studying.’ He’d say, ‘Mom, I want to tell you about my day and I want to hear about yours.’”

The first event that Rosin planned for SCPAB was a performance of student musicians at the student union. He was standing outside after the event when the bicyclist hit him.

The university hosted a candlelight vigil while he was in the hospital and a memorial service after he died. A bus full of Delaware students drove up for the funeral.

#LiveLifeLikeMattyRo

Matt’s family saw that people were still thinking of him during his time in the hospital through the #PrayForMattyRo posts, but they were concerned that it wouldn’t last.

“We were worried that people would jump on the bandwagon and it would be a news-of-the-day kind of thing,” Halli said. “So far, it hasn’t lessened at all. It’s sad to see how many people have been affected, but it’s also really amazing.”

After Rosin’s passing, #LiveLifeLikeMattyRo began to dominate the Internet instead, and at Delaware’s memorial service, students began printing #LiveLifeLikeMattyRo bracelets.

The bracelets, in addition to the constant memorials in Merrick and Delaware, are still continuing five months later.

“I think he’d probably giggle and laugh and make fun of himself,” Tumminelli said.

“He was the best son any mother could have,” Hertz-Rosin added. “He was my heart and soul and I miss him so deeply, so much that I ache.”