I always felt I should not have left my twin's bedside after spending two days with her, but I was needed at home about three hours away where my wife was coping with a broken ankle and my brother had also flown in from Nigeria so he could relieve me. But why did I not just see her one more time in the morning before rushing off to Nottingham? I honestly thought she was getting better, but when I got to Nottingham my brother through the telephone, expressed concern that she was now refusing to eat. My brother then told me that the Doctors were asking for the husband and we decided to ask him to come over from Nigeria immediately.
I spent the night with my twin, my cousin Ronke and my brother on the phone in prayers, I believe she could hear my voice. I booked my ticket the next morning to travel later that day only for my brother to phone me to say she had passed on....I changed my ticket got to the hospital in Kent to meet my grieving family and see what was left of my twin.
The Twins
Olukayode and Folashade: 1988 During His Call to Bar
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Feelings of Guilt...
Mary R Morgan states that:
"The complex identity issues and the often deeply mutual, gifting, and intimate relationship between twins, stemming from their beginnings in the womb, create a special character for twin bereavement. It also can create some confusing and difficult challenges. I’d like to mention a few of these here.
Understanding that our identity can be seriously challenged when we lose a twin, we realize that growing into and/or consolidating a sense of ourselves as a separate individual becomes an essential part of a successful bereavement process. I believe that it is important to engage in experiences that afford us the time to listen to, and get to know ourselves. In so doing, we find out more about our own likes, dislikes, needs, personal challenges, and special gifts, and we learn to express them.
Through our personal endeavors and experiences we learn to bring forth who we are in our own right. As we are able to define, understand and grow to feel safe in ourselves as separate individuals, we become ready to take the risk of acknowledging and accepting in the deepest part of ourselves that our twin has died; moving forward to do our major grieving, and thereby to heal. I believe that by this acknowledgement and acceptance, we are able to set our twin free, releasing him or her out of the bonds of their death experience."
Through our personal endeavors and experiences we learn to bring forth who we are in our own right. As we are able to define, understand and grow to feel safe in ourselves as separate individuals, we become ready to take the risk of acknowledging and accepting in the deepest part of ourselves that our twin has died; moving forward to do our major grieving, and thereby to heal. I believe that by this acknowledgement and acceptance, we are able to set our twin free, releasing him or her out of the bonds of their death experience."
I realise am not the only one who has lost Folashade Feyisara but I see her everyday and feel her absence intensely. In the next quotation from Mary R Morgan, I find some resonance:
"As we take in the character and challenges of the twin bereavement process, it is important to note that family, community, and the psychotherapeutic attitudes towards twin loss and the timing of twin bereavement have an important effect on twins. When others misunderstand the special nature of twin loss and twin needs during their bereavement, twins can begin to mistrust their own healing process and to repress and negate their feelings. They then pull back into isolation and loneliness. And for some, the bereavement process is interrupted. Twin grief is easily misunderstood. Other members of the family heal and “move on” leaving the twin still deep in their loss. In experiencing their loss, many twins feel half of themselves have died. Some feel they must start living their departed twin’s life, trying to take on the twin’s role and responsibilities as they struggle under their own severe loss.
Twins also experience a survivor’s guilt attached to twin loss: They ask, “Why wasn’t it me who died?” or, “If I’d done something different my twin would still be alive.” When there’s a stillborn or in-utero loss, some twins blame themselves for robbing their twin of the nutrients it needed to survive. All these twin feelings and experiences underline the unique quality of the twin bereavement process and its needs, and of the importance of not only the twins themselves but also their families and counselors to understanding this special bereavement process."
Twins also experience a survivor’s guilt attached to twin loss: They ask, “Why wasn’t it me who died?” or, “If I’d done something different my twin would still be alive.” When there’s a stillborn or in-utero loss, some twins blame themselves for robbing their twin of the nutrients it needed to survive. All these twin feelings and experiences underline the unique quality of the twin bereavement process and its needs, and of the importance of not only the twins themselves but also their families and counselors to understanding this special bereavement process."
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