I hate counting down since that one day. That day when I screamed my pain and anger. I wailed. I was so mad at her. At heroin. At whoever the poor person was who sold her those drugs that took her life.

Six months and three days ago, I told her to call me if she ever wanted to give up. I told her that I would remind her of all the reasons why she is wonderful and worth it. I told her that I loved her. She was sad. She was struggling in so many ways that I hope to never fully understand. She needed to go. And I had no clue it was coming.

I miss her laugh. Her smile.

Her stupid Facebook posts. Her inappropriate jokes. I miss her asking me about Lewis and how he’s doing and the funny things he does.

I miss her. So much. I am sick to my stomach that she is gone every single day.

Unless I am engaged in something, I am thinking about her.

Then there are these books and self-help websites… I sit sometimes, feeling completely numb and lost. So I start googling:

“What to do when your twin dies”

“Twinless Twin”

I found this website that discusses grief in losing a twin. It’s a website connected to the book, When Grief Calls Forth the Healing by Mary Rockefeller Morgan. It explained how I was feeling so accurately:

In order to better understand our individual healing journey, let’s begin here by looking at the larger context of our twin loss. One of the most challenging things about twinship and twin loss is that for twins, the subjective “I” is often seen by them to be in the framework of “We.” We see ourselves in the context of another person. This is really important! – it is the issue of our identity – the question of “Who am I?” – this intrinsic perception affects not only how we see ourselves, but others as well. It affects the meaning we ascribe to ourselves in the world. When our twin is lost, the “We” is broken. It is physically destroyed. We are often left feeling half of a person. We lose our grounding, and we are off-balance. We often feel unable to negotiate our world. The twin that remains for us is both a physical and psychological memory, accompanied now by crippling pain. So not only are we bereft as twinless twins, but our sense of who we are as individuals can be severely affected, even threatened and dramatically challenged. Therefore, how we are affected by our twin loss depends a lot on the meaning of our twinship to us, and to whom we believe we are as individuals.

 

Then I remember the faith and comfort I had immediately after she left. It mostly came from this talk titled the Doors of Death by Russell M. Nelson.

He says:

Irrespective of age, we mourn for those loved and lost. Mourning is one of the deepest expressions of pure love. It is a natural response in complete accord with divine commandment: “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die.” (D&C 42:45.)

Moreover, we can’t fully appreciate joyful reunions later without tearful separations now. The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.

And remember

The truth that once was spoken

To love another person

Is to see the face of God

…Even the darkest night will end

And the sun will rise.

-Les Miserables, “Finale 2”