Reflections of a Lone Twin...

Today, I am initiating a new section of this blog, Twins in a World of Singletons.  I am calling this section, Reflections of a Lone Twin.  Here I will think and reflect on paper about some aspect of being a lone twin in a world of singletons.  Lone twin is the term used to describe a twin whose twin has died.  The lone twin is not necessarily alone or lonely, but simply alive without his/her twin. Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto!  O.k., so they weren't lovers, but I just couldn't resist....

In about a month, I will commemorate the 23rd anniversary of my identical twin's death on Friday, March 31, 1989.  As I prepare for my annual rites of remembrance,which sometimes, strangely enough, I forget, I do so for the first time in which I have a loving partner in my life.  All these 23 years, I have been missing something in my life, something distinct from, but intimately connected to, the loss at 50 of the constant companionship and mutual love of my twin.

Now I realize what I was missing, although only because now I have what I was missing:  Someone who loves me unconditionally even as I love him unconditionally.  How was it, I ask myself, that I could not see something so simple as having or not having a constant lover in my life.  Everyday, I either hear or read about people

• Looking for someone...
• Looking for Ms. Right or Mr. Right...
• Looking to find that one person called my Lover and my Beloved...

For singletons, this search goes on all the time, usually ending in marriage, living together, or simply being friends and lovers for life.   For singletons, the lucky ones seem to be those who meet and fall in love as teenagers, like Romeo and Juliet, marry, and live happily ever after.

But for identical twins, the "other half" is literally the other half!  So a search for a person to love and be loved by never even begins:  As soon as the splitting of the nucleus of the zygote created by Mom and Dad, a partnership for life is created.

Here are some themes I intend to share in my reflections:

• What about identical twins and sex?
• Plato's Other Half story and identical twins
• Couple Power, pluses and minuses

•  What about sex?  Isn't sex missing in the "perfect" relationship of twins?  My response: sex at its noblest is an expression of love.  Sex between siblings is taboo in all cultures with which I am familiar.  Twins are not exempt from the power and influence of their culture and its taboos.
• On Plato's explanation of why men seek women and women seek men  (the other half)
• On my realization that I never gave or received love completely from those close to me such as my younger sister, my wife, my children, and my lover.  (Couple Power as the power couples get; e.g., the power that comes from not having to search for a partner anymore.
•  

Together

                  Together

            A poem by George of Thailand

              For Chang and Eng of Siam

Together,                                        

Joined from before birth,

Separated only by death,

You,

Chang and Eng,

The original Siamese twins,

Never left each other’s side:

Don’t we all long for

Such a life companion?

Be careful what you wish for!

Together

You fathered 21 children,

Chang 11, Eng 10,

Chang’s children had their mother

Eng’s children had their mother,

Separate mothers,

Mothers who were sisters!

Together

You toured the whole world;

You who were born

Poor in a small Thai village becoming

Rich Southern Gentlemen Farmers,

Plantation and slave owners in

North Carolina.

Together

You became poor again,

Losing your slaves

In a war between peoples

Who wanted to separate

Just as you did.

Together

You died,

On the same day,

At the same hour:

You, Chang, of natural causes,

Followed by

You, Eng,

Who on seeing your dead twin,

Died, some say, of fright.

Scared to death, indeed!

When first I learned of this,

My reaction was:

Not of fright but of love!

I’m such a romantic!

Now, many years later,

Eleven years older than you,

Chang and Eng

When you died,

Separated from my twin

These 22 years,

I too believe you, Eng,

Died of fright.

Together,

Oh, so very much

Together for 62 years,

The mere thought of

Living alone,

A Lone Twin,

Scared you to death.

Together,                                                         

We, Jimmy and Georgie,

Thank you

Khop khun krap!

For being not afraid

To die

Together.

July 23, 2011

A Lone Twin in Siam: Thinking of Siamese Twins and Cats. And What about Siamese Twin Siamese Cats?

Siam gave the West Siamese cats and Siamese twins.  The original Siamese twins were Eng and Chang Bunker, known in Thailand as the Chinese Twins because of their Chinese father.  In the case of the cats, they originated in Siam.  But Siamese twins, of course, did not.  There are identical twins joined together physically in all parts of the world.  Siam then its other word for itself, Thailand, or officially the Kingdom of Thailand.  And the West thought it would be "politically correct" to start calling Siamese twins conjoined twins.  Why not Thai twins? How ironic that would sound, two twins tied together indeed!  But the cat world got to keep their Siamese cats. Anyway, at the basis of much of this is the fact that Thais don't speak English, do not share our poor alphabet.  Indeed, our alphabet seems poor with its 26 letters (5 vowels and 21 consonants) compared to the Thai alphabet with its 73 letters ( 42 consonants and 31 vowels)!  So you can appreciate the problem of trying to represent Thai sounds with only about half the letters.  This give rise to many different ways to represent the sound of Thai words using the English alphabet.   Oh, yes, and the Thai language has five distinct tones!

Here's a sentence in English translated into Thai:  Siamese twins are not all from Thailand but the Bunker twins were from Thailand.  ฝาแฝดสยามไม่ได้ทั้งหมดจากประเทศไทย แต่ฝาแฝด Bunker ถูกจากประเทศไทย  See what I mean?  Well we could all understand one word anyway!

The Bunker boys were born in Thailand in 1811 and died in North Carolina in 1874.  Chang died first of natural causes.  Moments after, Eng died.  Some say he died of fright.  I have my own ideas on the question, but I'll leave that for my next posting.

A Mystical Bond

Following is a copy of an article published by the Washington Post about Jimmy and me:

Things Twins, Links

Today I added "Things Twins, Links" on this blog.  It is to your right.  I will list any links on twins which I think might be of interest to readers of Twins in a World of Singletons.  I have started off with links to articles on Nancy Segal.  From this researcher and author, I have learned much about what it means to be a twin.  Although she dispels much of the mystique surrounding twins, she illuminates the mystery that twins truly present to the world.  Enjoy reading!

My Twin Above All!

Twins have a relationship few understand

When I was teaching in the Boston Public Schools system back in 1975, I had a pair of identical twins in my class. One was with me in the morning session and the other was with me in the afternoon session. Their schedule was such that they did not see each other until they returned home at the end of the school day. Jose and Jesus, young Puerto Ricans, were studying in my Bilingual Business Skills Program

Once I asked Jose, "If you had to lose everyone in your family except one, which one would you choose not to lose?" Without any hesitation he responded, "Jose!" Later in the same day I asked Jesus the same question. He likewise answered, "Jesus!" My twin Jimmy and I had previously asked ourselves the same question. We both answered with the other's name. So of course I saw nothing strange in the way Jesus and Jose had responded. There is nothing unusual in this special, sort of mystical, bond twins everywhere seem to have, especially identical twins.

Later it occurred to me to ask some singletons the same question. Not one singleton chose any member of their family other than their mother or their father, except in one case: The singleton chose his grandmother!  A couple of singletons asked me, "Why would you ever choose your brother over your parents?"  My response was that we are twins first, then brothers.

My conclusion: Most twins, I believe, will choose one's twin over all others precisely because he or she is one's twin, not because he is our brother or she is our sister. Often a non-twin will say "my twin brothers"; however, when a male twin is talking about his identical twin, twin brother is a redundancy. "My twin" is quite sufficient.

Wombmates!

Mysteries of Life Before Birth...

The expression "my twin brother" or "my twin sister" is a redundancy. If you are a twin, you and your twin are by definition siblings. Brother and sister both mean having the same parents.

There is one historic exception to the statement that twins have the same parents.

After World War II, a West German woman gave birth to twin boys, fraternal twins: one was white and one was black. The doctors were stymied. How could this be? They investigated and found no African relative in either the woman's family nor in the man's family. They searched further and discovered that right after the woman had had sex with the German, she had sex with an African-American soldier stationed in Germany. Later she married the German who accepted that he was the father. So although it's possible that twins not have the same father, they always have the same mother! In the case of identical twins, both twins have the very same parents, of course.

Then there is another twist to consider with respect to identical twins.

My twin and I certainly had the same mother and father.  However, as in all conceptions, father's contribution and mother's contribution joined to create a zygote; that is, a fertilized egg.  How romantic!  Now in singletons, the zygote goes on to become the little one they call their son or daughter.  But in identical twins, the zygote, for still unknown reasons, splits, thus producing two little ones where before there was only one.  Now that, my dear readers, is surely romantic!  From two, one.  From one, two.

Now the philosophical questions becomes, If little Jimmy and Georgie came about from the splitting zygote mommy and daddy made, can't it, the fertilized egg, be considered the twins' immediate parent, relegating Mr. and Mrs. Ross to the role of mediate parents?  Your meditation for the day.  Mine for a lifetime.