Sisters [and twins]

Eleven years ago…

I held two tiny babies in my arms.  By this time they were almost a month old. [February is their birthday month.]

I remember sitting in a chair in their nursery late in the night/early in the morning…

As I looked at them I was in awe at the definitive ways they were so different.  Their personalities were already within them even before I held them in my arms.  It’s one of the things I’ve been lucky enough to get to see with twins. Before they were even born I knew which one was Emma and which was Miriam. I didn’t need a piece of string tied around their finger or nail polish on one of their toes.

I knew them before they got here but that’s about the only mother instinct I had before my kids were born. [For every pregnancy I was wrong about the gender, I didn’t once have a pre-pregnancy dream about any of my children, and I didn’t experience the nesting thing…].

Energetic. Strong-willed. Crazy. Intense.

Different words for each of them from the very beginning.

I have all kinds of thoughts about twins (that’s for another post).

The one thing I’ll say here is that having twin girls has been an adventure…one that I’d do again.  Because the fantastic-ness of these two girls has spun my life in circles, been a circus, and brought me full circle.

So now…these 11 years later I’m still in awe.

Dear Emma,

How did I get so lucky to have you come to my little world and fill it with so much joy and energy and wonder?

I watch you and see you be a fierce and loyal friend.  You are a lioness who protects the people she loves.  One of my favorite things to watch is the way you march through imaginary worlds with Grace fighting off dragons together and taking care of babies in hospitals.

You say the most hilarious things so unexpectedly and you laugh with carefree abandon.  You know what you like.  Don’t mess.

There’s a place in my heart that is only Emma-shaped. No one else can fill it.

I love you.

Dear Miriam,

My sweet, innocent, determined little missie.

There is no one in the world like you.  I love our long chats about the world as you see it and the time we get to spend together discussing life.  You see things with so much profoundness and insight and compassion.  The depth of you overwhelms me sometimes and how aware you are of the feelings of others.

You are delightful and so beautiful through and through.  You have taken up residence in my heart in a way that no one else can.

I love you.

 

[all pictures, except the one below, are film]