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A Twin Connection

marva_and_margaretIs there such a thing as a twin connection?

That’s a question that I’ve pondered for most of my life. You see, my mother was a twin. I doubt very much that she was an identical twin, although back in the day nobody knew there was a difference between one kind of twin and another. When they were born in the 1930s, twins were enough of an oddity that any set of twins was a spectacle, and they were, indeed, a wonder in that day. They didn’t look much alike at all, yet they were dressed alike, spoiled alike, and disciplined alike. If anything, they may have been mirror twins. One was right-handed, the other left-handed. One was popular and flirty, the other a quiet homebody. They were both voracious readers and were thick as thieves. Throughout most of my life, hardly a week went by that they didn’t spend an hour or more on the phone. I swear they were talking about the latest books they were reading.

They would call each other whenever one of them had an ache or pain, wondering if the other were ill or sick or in need of care. That was their twin connection, and it always made me wonder how that kind of bond could exist over time and space. For most of their lives, they lived nearly 300 miles apart. How could they feel anything of that link over such a wide expanse of particles and time? Just the car trip took hours, so how could a feeling in a leg or an arm, a tooth or a stomach get from one to the other? They claimed that it did. They’d spent all of their lives together, sleeping in each other’s arms, until they left home when they were seventeen.

Maybe this is a phenomenon anyone who isn’t a twin cannot understand. Perhaps it’s a coupling of their souls that happens in utero. When my twin niece and nephew were born, they would communicate with one another as babies on a level that was non-verbal and pre-language that you could obviously see when they were going through the activities of their daily life. One would get it in their mind to be funny, throw their food or shake their whole body in a crazy way and the other would laugh. They made their own fun and acted as both performers and audience for one another. That non-verbal exchange between babies was enough to make you believe in that twin connection.

What have you seen or experienced as unwritten, unscientific evidence of a connection between twins? Do you think twins have a bond that goes beyond time and space, life and death?

phenomenon, twin connection