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.