Twins

My name is Brenda and I'm an identical twin. My twin sister's name is Linda. Our neighbors put "twin names" in a bowl and my mom pulled out the names Brenda and Linda, thus we were named. No one called us by our first names as children. We were called "twin". No one could tell us apart. I was born 3 minutes earlier than Linda. I have always claimed to be the smarter twin and the strongest, joking of course, because I was born first. I now know through some research that being born 3 minutes earlier does not make me any older than Linda. The age of identical twins is actually from conception, not at birth. Wow!

Lots of people wonder what it's like to be a twin. First let me say I'm speaking for me and my twin so if you run across this information and say, "Oh, well that's not what it's like for me and my twin", you'll understand that my comments are strictly my own. I'm speaking for Linda here too because I know her opinions and feelings are the same as mine .

Being a twin for me and Linda, well, gee, it's like having a best friend without having to prove yourself, she's always there no matter what. You can depend on each other for emotional support and always understanding each others feelings from deep within. Since Linda and I live far apart, there is always a feeling of never being "whole". It is like part of us is missing. We connect through our feelings even though we don't live close to each other. Being apart has been the worse part of being a twin to me. I personally don't think it was mean't for twins to live apart.

Linda and I sang in church as little girls. The preacher would say, "Do the twins have a song for us today"? We always did. We sang in school too. I think back to that and I don't remember even being able to sing good. We were asked to do a lot of things just because we were twins.

We were popular in school and in the town where we grew up as teenagers. We were calander girls for the local newspaper, we were in a parade on a float while doing the hula hoop. That tells you a little bit about our age I suppose. We dressed alike all through school. It seemed expected that we would dress alike. We argued a lot about what we would wear to school the next day. Our mom made most of our clothes for us. I do remember one time she took us to a store and let us pick out seperate outfits. Boy, that was a treat for us. There were 3 sets of twins in that town. Linda and I were the only twins in our school however. Being a twin seemed to be an oddity back then. More so than today.

I have read about other twins and like some of them, Linda and I have had those remarkable happenings where by chance or whatever, we follow in each others footsteps. I remember she was visiting me and ended up in the hospital with kidney stones. Later that night, I was laying in bed and started having severe pain in my right side. Now I had heard how twins sometimes have sympathetic pain for each other so I laid there pretending I wasn't hurting. As the story unfolds, I was taken to the same hospital and we ended up in the same room. I had gallstones and ended up having surgery and she eventually got to go home. I remember I cried when she got to go home because I felt so alone without her.

We sent the same birthday cards or other cards to the same person even though we bought the cards in different locations and different stores. I could go on and on about these happenings but you do get the idea of what I'm saying. There is this subconscious "thing" that goes on between me and my twin. I don't understand it any more than you do except I know it's real. We do have our differences, mainly from circumstances and enviromental factors. It seems that I'm "hot blooded" and she is "cold blooded". That could be due to me living in the south and her living in the north. I love snow and she gets tired of it very easily. Of course snow in the south is a real phenomonen and very exciting since it is so rare. I wear my hair short and she wears hers long. I think sometimes these differences are our way of having our own identity.

Of all the things I can say about being like my twin, being a Christian is the thing I'm most proud. We both have the same belief in God and we both love Jesus with all our hearts. He has sustained us through these years apart and given us a hope of being together someday. Without Him, we would be nothing.

Linda has been my strength when I am weak, she has been my sunshine on a cloudy day, she has given me hope when I have had no hope. Plain and simple, she makes me whole when I'm only half the person I should be.

Thank God for My Twin!

Twin Stuff

"Praise the Lord"

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