Saturday (May 17) was already certain to be an emotional occasion for Lydia Mattern.
Not only was the College of Saint Benedict senior graduating with a degree in theology, but she was also chosen as the student speaker during the school’s 110th annual commencement ceremony in the Clemens Fieldhouse.
Yet what lent the moment even more poignancy was the presence of Dr. Ronald Hoekstra, who was on hand to share in the celebration with Mattern’s family and friends.
Hoekstra was the physician who cared for Mattern and her twin brother Cooper when the pair were born prematurely at just 26 weeks, necessitating an 80-day stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Children’s Minnesota, a hospital in Minneapolis.
“It means so much to me to have him here,” said Mattern, a Fargo (North Dakota) Shanley High School graduate whose family was living in the Twin Cities when she and her twin brother were born.
“For him to be able to see how I turned out, and share in a day like today, is very special.”
Mattern first reached out to Hoekstra as part of her senior capstone project looking at ways theology can be used to celebrate the human dignity of every person, and how that concept can inspire and motivate healthcare providers in their daily work.
“We talked about his career as a doctor and the way he put patients first,” said Mattern, who herself plans to begin a one-year master’s degree program in health care administration at Boston College following graduation.
“It was my mom’s idea to reach out. He’s been retired for some time now, so I didn’t know if it was going to be possible. But I gave his clinic a call and he called me back within 20 minutes.”
During that conversation, Hoekstra asked if he might attend Saturday’s commencement ceremony – a prospect that thrilled Lydia and her family.
“He provided care for our kids, but he truly cared about them as well,” said Lydia’s mother Jamie, her voice cracking with emotion. “That’s a lesson that helped shape who we knew we wanted to be as parents. The NICU isn’t something you scream and cheer and celebrate about. But I can 100 percent say that experience helped form us into the parents and people we are today.”
Lydia weighed just 1 pound, 15 ounces at birth while Cooper – who has gone on to a successful collegiate football career as a quarterback at Saint John’s and Concordia-Moorhead, the school at which he earned All-MIAC honors the past two seasons – weighed just 2 pounds, half-an-ounce.
Yet, despite that, Hoekstra said they responded well to their treatment in the NICU.
“It probably did not seem that way to their parents, but I’d say they had a relatively smooth course,” he said. “Of course, it doesn’t feel that way to a parent no matter how smooth it is.”
Nonetheless, Hoekstra said it’s still amazing to see the way both Lydia and Cooper – who graduated from Concordia two weeks ago – have turned out.
“It’s a miracle, you know, even though we expected them to survive,” he said. “But to see how they’ve gone on to do things that in many ways are superior to the average full-term baby is really exciting to see.”
“I kept a journal every night for those 80 days they were in the NICU, and I always go back and read bits and pieces of it,” Lydia’s father Troy added. “What stands out most is how Dr. Hoekstra reassured us many, many times it was going to be OK.
“As new parents, we didn’t understand. We didn’t know. We weren’t expecting this. His reassurance and his faith and expertise helped get us through that.”
Now, all these years later, it’s clear Hoekstra was right.
“When I think about how much he did, not only for Cooper and me, but for our whole family, it’s just very meaningful,” Lydia said. “To have the chance to be who I am now, and make him proud, is really special.”
Hoekstra said the moment meant a lot to him too.
“It’s an honor for me to be here,” said Hoekstra, who has been retired since 2018. “Even though you know 90 percent of these kids do pretty well, you can’t imagine being able to see exactly how well these two have done.
“It’s amazing to think about.”