Photo credit Jeni Dibley-Rouse
Dear Anna,
I've been meaning to write to your for 36 years but I've been brushing it aside but now I am a mother of two I think I am starting to appreciate the pain my parents and family have gone through and still going through when you died of cot death at three months old.
We grew together from one egg so we were carbon copies of each other but apparently I was the loud one and you were the quiet one that would roll your eyes at my dramatic ways. By the way I'm still pretty dramatic.
Obviously when you died I didn't really know what had happened but as I grew up I would always get your memory box out of the top of wardrobe where our mum had told me I could look at it at anytime and I did. I would so very carefully take your belongings out and lay them on the bed, looking and wondering what it could of been like being the "the twins" growing up. Would we of had the same personality as we looked the same?
I use to mention you all the time to people I met but gradually over time the awkward conversations were too much and especially as when I became a mum I didn't mention it as I didn't want to scare anyone about the unthinkable of losing a child. I use to cover up the awkwardness with comments like "could you imagine two of me?", but obviously two of me would of made things complete.
Now I have two children of my own I often see a trait in them that I can't relate to a member of the family and I think maybe this is you?
I still check my children are breathing when I go in and check on them, the first thing I look for is their little lunges moving and I have even been known to end up waking them up, a sacrifice I'm willing to take to make sure they are breathing.
You are always in our hearts and we remember the day you died every year and never forgotten on our birthday.
See you again one day.
Your twin sister, Jeni xxx