Twins

I am the father of identical twin boys.  They were born in 1985. This January they will be forty.  At least Lee will. Sadly, we lost Dan in a car accident when he was 15.  While I miss him, and love him, and think of him every day, that’s not what this post is about. No, this is about how twins have been a big part of my life since I was a child.

My father was a twin. He had a fraternal twin brother. They were as different as night and day!  But when they were together, they had that special “twin language” you hear about.  They’d mumble in a low voice that we could barely hear and couldn’t understand! All the years we worked together, Daddy never understood that I didn’t know what he was thinking the way Uncle Jerry did! When my father was in his final days before his death, in and out of consciousness, he would call out for his brother.  Uncle Jerry said he couldn’t come because it was like he was dying too.  He felt the pain.  I never forgave him for neglecting Daddy when he needed him most.

I started first grade and went all twelve grades with twin girls, Faye and Kay.  They too were fraternal.  Both pretty girls, Kay was blond and Faye had brown hair. Sadly, Kay was killed in a car accident several years ago.  Faye lives in Alabama now but I’m still in touch with her on social media.  

My daughter in law, Sara has a twin brother. I’ll always think that’s the reason they only had the one child. They weren’t too keen on having twins! 

When Lee and Dan were in elementary school, there were 4 sets of twins in their class!  The two of them, identical girls, fraternal boys and boy/girl twins!  

Raising twins was a trip!  You never knew what they’d do next!  There are so many things I could tell you, but it would take forever to type it up!  I’ll just tell one funny episode.  One day I heard them in their room obviously fighting. I opened the door and they just stood there a second. Then they grabbed one another and started dancing!  Like slow dancing!  It was hilarious!  

Going out in public with them was a nightmare.  Not because of them misbehaving, but because we had to deal with so many stupid people.  I can’t count how many times we were asked “are they twins?”  We finally just started giving dirty looks to those dumbasses.  Or smart ass answers like “You mean there’s two of them?”  People would stop us in the grocery store wanting to “look at the twins.” They’re not a freak show people.  People were mostly nice and just curious.  It just got to be too much wrestling twin babies plus a 2 year old while people treated you like a circus sideshow.

I thought about that today when I learned of the passing of the mother of one of my friends.  She had twin boys and shortly after mine were born, I saw her in the bank.  She congratulated me and wanted to know all about them.  Then she said, “I’m going to tell you something that nobody else will tell you. You’ll hear that twins are double trouble. Don’t believe it.  That is not true.  They’re at least 3 times, maybe 4 times the trouble!”  We had a good laugh about that over the years!  

Do me a favor.  And do the parents of twins a favor. If you see them in public, please don’t act like they’re freaks. Don’t run them down asking stupid questions. Admire them from afar.  Compliment them. Be kind to the parents.  They’ll appreciate it!