Birthday Tribute: Letter to My Dead Twin (Part 3)

Dear Luisa or what name I should know you by,

I hope I am spelling your name right! [For you readers, see why on my post from yesterday.]

Please know that I love you and have loved you, even though I didn’t know you, as long as I can remember, at least, after I found out about you. You probably know that already as the other things I am about to tell you. However, I wish to express what is upon my heart at this time.

I used to be SO angry - with sadness underneath all that anger - at God and for quite some time, demanding answers: Why did YOU die and me live? Why couldn’t I die and you live? Why couldn’t we BOTH die or both live?

As I was growing up, I often felt something was missing, but I never knew what it was. As a child growing up, I would feed this “hole in the soul” as author and former alcoholic, John Bradshaw terms it.

My relationship with food, I believe, was primarily to numb my feelings, to dampen my feelings of sadness, sometimes so intense, due to the pain of a sense of loss. And I feel there is tons of sadness, layers and layers of it.

I don’t recall having an ah-ha, this-is-it moment when my Mom informed me of your death, connecting it with feelings of emptiness that I felt a lot thus far. I doubt it, as I don’t even recall the conversation.

I desired to feel your presence or to see you even as some people do…some who can see spirits and angels. However, I never did and I wondered why not. It made me real sad. Why couldn’t I at least sense you around me?

I rarely spoke with you as if you were in the room though and I can’t even tell you why, other than perhaps because I didn’t see or feel you energetically. I felt guilty about that, thinking I was supposed to… if I didn’t, well, it might mean that I didn’t care about you or didn’t love you, enough.

I used to wonder what it would have been like to be playmates as children and even as adults, like to play pranks or tricks on people. For example, maybe swapping a date with our boyfriends. I think it could have been a lot of fun! ;)

And I also wondered if you and I would look alike and how much so so we could pull such stunts and pranks on people in the first place! ;)

And by the way, I would really like to know: Are you the one that puts heart shapes in my path so that I see them and think of you? It happened so innocently and spontaneously until I discovered in hindsight that I had a heart collection, I mean heart-shaped collection of items.

I later became aware of them over the years when I would see it especially in nature such as stones or even leaves or trees, and so many things like in my kitchen or elsewhere! ;)

Was that you whispering to me, letting me know of your presence? Was that a symbol of your love for me? Was that the reason why my inspired poem entitled
"You" came to mind, because it was about reflection, and being a twin is like that.

Did you happen to know dear twin, that a perfect heart shape is made up of two perfect halves, like a twin?

Will I ever hear or know the answers to all these questions and more that I have been thinking of over the years?

Will it even matter when I see you, when we meet beyond this realm? Will I be able to embrace you and will I weep all my pent-up tears over all these years as I feel them now running down my cheeks, or will we kiss and hug each other in joy and laughter?

Oh God, how hard it is to be a surviving twin...at times. I know I am strong, but sometimes it’s so tough. It’s tough to be alone as I feel so often in life. So many people do not see me, the real me, not know me or understand me.

That is why I have looked for you, looked for you everywhere, searched for your presence everywhere in others. Occasionally I would meet someone who would symbolically represent you, usually in a workshop of which I have taken many to uncover and unearth the layers of emotions, especially anger and sadness that I have felt most of my life.

I no longer cry as much since my cycle ended and sometimes I wish just for that reason, and that reason alone that it didn’t stop just yet. It’s so healing and cleansing to cry.

Just remember this please, that no matter what happens I love you. I miss you. I wish you were here, here with me, here to hold my hand, here to give me a hug, here to share joy and tears and laughter.

May you, wherever you are, be at peace, at peace in your heart and soul...till we meet, and then may I join you and feel that too.

Love you dear twin, love you sis. <3 Namaste. Now your turn: have you ever written a letter to a dead relative as if they were alive? How did you find the experience?

Celebrations! of the Miraculous Kind

As the popular 1980 “Celebration” disco tune by Kool & the Gang goes, “Celebrate, good times. Come on." Actually that was one of my favourite and fun dancing songs! And that’s just what I'll do: celebrate, have fun, and dance!

One reason for me to do so is that I decluttered. Well, at least one layer of part of my home. I started this during the holiday season whilst off on ‘vacation.’

However, I have another reason to celebrate: my birthday!

You see it is my birthday and I discovered a few months ago that I don’t celebrate much - actually enough - in life. I also learned it’s actually a great idea or rather important to do so, spiritually speaking. (If you are familiar with the law of attraction, you will understand what I mean.)

As I alluded to in a previous posting (In a Funk: Blue since Birth?! dated August 25, 2013), I am a miracle baby (though my twin sister died).

I was born two months prematurely and at that time - in those days - the mortality rate for premature babies was relatively high. (I could perhaps ask one of the Neonatologists whom I worked for in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at The Hospital for Sick Children; however, I won’t go that far.)

Nowadays there are even more miraculous births. In spring of 2006, “one of the world’s smallest surviving preemies” (according to the Vancouver Sun), Amillia Taylor was born at 19 weeks weighing “just 283 grams” – a little over ½ a pound (or almost 10 ounces)! – and “measured 24 centimetres – under 10 inches – with skin so fragile and translucent her blood vessels could be seen beneath.” Yet she is not only a 'survivor' (as I call myself at times), but also a 'thriver.'



Amillia was in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) for four months. Watch the video below, in particular from the 2:06 or 2:10 mark. It gave me shivers (in part with the music of Kenny G, I believe, in the background).

WOW! Isn't life so amazing, fragile, and precious?

I am SO grateful to have my senses and the use of my limbs and digits with ease and grace. And I am so lucky to be alive ... and be me (or should that be "lucky to be me … and alive!"). ;)

Communication(s) from my Dead Twin?

A woman asked me recently how my dead twin sister appears to me. I knew what she meant, but I didn’t know the answer, at least not immediately. After she gave her example of finding white feathers and thinking of a particular close friend of hers who passed away every time this occurred, it triggered a memory for me.

For many years now, I’m not even sure how long ago, perhaps when I was in my twenties, maybe even teens, I spontaneously started collecting heart-shaped objects. I didn’t know why as it seemed to happen unconsciously. It wasn’t till years later that I realized I was doing this, that is, that I actually had a bit of a heart collection.

Over the years, I have come to discover many heart-shaped images in things. I see them mostly in the environment, in elements of nature, especially in the shapes of flowers, and stones and rocks for example. And I also see it indirectly, like within a pattern as in the bark of a tree.

I seem to gravitate towards heart-shaped items as in the case of a calendar that has numerous pictures, primarily photos of heart-shaped objects. Though this appeals to me greatly, it doesn’t mean that I seek everything that is heart-shaped! But (pause), did you happen to notice that a heart is two halves in one? And in its original(?) form, identical halves? My twin and I, identical at birth...hmmm...

Reminiscing about heart shapes during the above-mentioned conversation, I wonder if that is my twin’s way of letting me know of her presence, that she is nearby and/or thinking of me. (Unfortunately, I hate to admit, I don’t sense her or see her or hear her at all and certainly wish I did!) This could certainly be an interesting possibility as, even though she’s had a huge impact on my life, I didn’t know her at all!

One way, I’ve been told, my twin speaks to me is through words (nonverbally). I often get words claircognizantly; I don’t see or hear them, I just get them like an instant knowing, spontaneously as if from the ethers. It is akin to claircognizance which is a knowing state, i.e., knowing something without knowing how you got the info. This is otherwise challenging to explain unless you experience this. (See my posting dated May 7 and May 31, 2011 and entitled, “The Call to Write Part 1” and Part 2.)

I strongly believe we can communicate with others on the other side – yes, I’m speaking of dead people here – though not about séances or channelling (as I don’t trust that). It is on a nonverbal level, like telepathic communication with images in our mind’s eye (i.e., inner intuition) and/or outward images or objects such as feathers or coins for example, or in my case with words.

How do(es) your deceased loved one(s) ‘come’ to you or ‘speak’ to you in the forms of objects/images?