“What are you talking about? What truth?”
She held up her other hand in a gentle “stop” signal. “Please let me get all the way through this. Then we can talk.”
“I’m listening,” I said. She gave my hand a squeeze.
“The day you were born was the most glorious, happiest, most joyous of my life. It was also the saddest.”
Mom looked at me and came close and kissed my cheek.
“My wonderful son, Michael had been born. But, a minute later, my daughter was born. My daughter, Michelle.”
My mouth was hanging open.
“The difference was that you were born alive, and Michelle, because of a heart defect, never saw this world. She lived in me for nine months, and couldn’t make it that last minute. It was too much for her little heart to bear.”
Mom stopped and cried. Her face scrunched up and got red and the tears flowed. I pulled her to me and she buried her face in my shoulder. Her whole body shuddered and her back got real hot and I could feel her get damp with the sweat of whatever that terrible knowledge was torturing her with.
After a minute, she pushed away. She pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her tears and blew her nose. Then she started again:
“So you see, we’re alike in a way. We’re both twins. You’re an identical twin, but without a partner. I was lucky enough to have your Uncle Zack, who I could feel whether he was with me or not.”
“Mom. That explains why I’ve had this feeling all my life. Like there was something missing. That there was a hole that was there. I never thought it could be real or needed to be filled. I thought that’s how every non-twin, only child felt.”
“Every time you talked like that—every time you expressed that void—it tore through me. I kept hoping to fix it.”
“How? How could you fix something like that?”
“On that day, the day you were born, after I found out I lost my precious Michelle, I was inconsolable. I don’t know what would have happened if, all of a sudden, I hadn’t felt a presence and a little voice I could hear only with my heart and spirit. I felt it told me ‘Mom, don’t be sad. I’m right here waiting to be born. I just didn’t make it this time. I will the next time. You’ll see.’ And I felt a deep peace come over me.”
“Mom. I didn’t know … I didn’t know what you went through. Didn’t know I was a twin.” I also didn’t know what to make of her experience with that “voice.”
“That gave me hope. I knew then, and I know now that Michelle is waiting to be born. I know it as sure as you’re standing here. I know that part of you, Michael, your missing twin is waiting there right on the other side of conception.”
I didn’t know what to say. I had to process it all.
We walked some more. And Mom found the strength and courage to share with me more of the struggles she had endured and successfully hidden from me over the years.
“I thought ‘all we have to do is have another baby and Michelle will be right with us.’ But two years turned into ten and now ten have turned into eighteen. And we were never able to conceive. Your Dad was never able to conceive my little Michelle into me. That part of you is forever lost now.”