The Twins

Jenny and me at my sister Caroline’s wedding - Oct 2014

This story is about my sister, Jenny, and me. Twins. Born together on a winter’s day in 1973. Three minutes apart as my mother told it. This story is about the last month of her life. This story originated as a creative writing piece I did in a writing course at The International Writer's Collective. I didn’t share with my class mates then that this was a personal story. The version below is somewhat longer than the class piece. Writing this piece had a dual purpose: it helped me remember our last month together, and helped me to process her loss.

The 14th March 2023 marks two years since her passing. Jennifer, my twin sister, was the best birthday present I ever got. This piece of writing is dedicated to her memory, may she rest in peace.

The Journey

[Memory is such an imperfect tool until it is not. It is imperfect at remembering until it remembers every detail of a moment or time or place, or all of it together - the last moments together. Our first and last nights together.]

It was in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, January 2021. My phone rang. It still rang freely, even though people weren’t free to walk in the streets. “I don’t know how to say this,” Jenny said. And then she said it. I was running a bath. The water kept coming yet my world stopped in that moment. A momentary skip of a universal beat. It was unmistakable. My hands were trembling, everything was trembling. Something a hot bath couldn’t fix.

“I’ll be on the next plane down,” I said. The flight arrived two weeks later. Pandemic delayed. During the long flight the plane had crossed that imaginary boundary of the North and South divide and with it the seasons flipped. There was nothing I could do about it, overnight, Spring had changed to Autumn.

I arrived at the house shared by my sisters and walked through to the patio. Jenny was sitting in the dappled shade of the Elm tree, out of the midday sun. Even at this time of year the sun was still strong. Jenny stood up to greet me. I towered over her, I always had. There was a standing joke between us that I had stolen her food in the womb. She was unsteady on her feet and thin as a stick. Thirty-six kilograms at last count. She looked as if something was trying to suck the life out of her. There was. Cancer. I smiled, trying not to look shocked.

We hugged only as twins can, without reserve and complete intimacy. The conspiratorial time in the womb still evident to all. She sat back down in the chair and looked at me with those wild eyes that gave away how much pain she was in. “You know I’m going to beat this.” She was challenging not only me. “Don’t you?”

“Of course you are, ” I said. I turned my head quickly away and gazed out into the garden, green and lush from the summer rains. “Those sunflowers are so big,” I said. It took Jenny a moment to register what I’d said, then she too looked at them.

“I know,” she said. “They’re my favourite flowers.”

“I didn’t know that.” I said. After a lifetime of knowing her, I still didn’t know her.

Jenny the business owner, the single mother. Jenny the strong woman, the loyal friend. Jenny the beautiful soul, the extremely hard worker. Jenny the focused, the stubborn. Jenny the babbling brook, who couldn’t keep quiet and always had something to say, was solemn and quiet in a way that I had never known before. It frightened me. Instead of talking, she wanted to be massaged with cannabis oil. Day-in and day-out I laid my well intentioned and pleading hands on her bones. She was skin and bones – cancer can do that to your loved ones.  

Cancer took away Jenny’s interest in her business and family. The pain in her body too great to focus on life. Death was already wondering the halls of the house and her body. Jenny’s loved ones we were looking it straight in the eyes. You can’t not stare.

Life goes on amidst tragedy. Food is still prepared and eaten. The flavours of the food do not sour in the mouth because of looming tragedy. The wholesome and delicious food my sister Caroline was renowned for, tasted just that. I could’nt make it otherwise. It was our family tradition that we sat down to eat at the table. All together. No TV or phones or distractions. Family time. Jenny came once to the table to eat, the first night after I arrived. After that she would never come to the family table again.

She never complained about the pain she was in, even though it must have been immense. Her stoical, stubborn and focused self was still evident. She could barely stand now, but still wanted to walk herself to the toilet. I offered to carry her, “No babes.” She called everyone that. “I don’t want you to carry me.” She was as light as a feather by now. I was forty-seven years old, a strong guy, I could have carried her in one arm.

“Why not?” I protested.

“Because I don’t want you too,” she said. “I can walk by myself, just give me your arm.” We hobbled to the toilet and back again to her bed. She was a proud woman, just like our mother.

When we were very young we had one room together. We were together every moment of every day. I don’t remember this, I was too young. I only remember stories about it. Our parents gave us each our own room from about the age of five or six years old. A luxury then. We grew up having seperate rooms but did sleep together in the same room every now and then when visitors came or when some special occasion warranted it. Those were the best times.

In the last month of Jenny’s life we had one room together again. I slept in her room on a blow up mattress for the time I stayed in South Africa. This was precious and painful. The last two weeks Jenny was bed-ridden and you could say I was too. I spend most minute of every day with her, except for meals and breaks and my daily swim at the public pool, which helped me clear my mind and connect me to my body. It was cleansing.

And then on the night the angels came to claim her, a month and two days after I’d arrived, I walked into her room after having had my meal and she was waving her hands frantically. She hadn’t spoken for a couple of days. “I’m hot,” she said, “I need air.” I grabbed the fan and started fanning her fiercely. She lay back relieved. Her breathing changed , it became peaceful and irregular, with longer pauses, quietened and then stopped. And just like that, I was her twin brother no more.