Please note: this piece contains descriptions of grief some readers may find upsetting.
Hope & Joy, we couldn’t have named you anything else. The hope and joy you brought when we thought there was just one of you. And then, those two little heads together on the screen – two, two identical twins. Our twins, all ours. We didn’t know you were girls then. We imagined, we planned, we dreamed. We loved. We told your brother and sisters, we told everyone. Twins! Identical twins! Where would you sleep? How would you feed? How would you fit in the car? I made lists, I researched all things twins. I joined Twins Trust. We had a specialist twin consultant, we had extra appointments. Extra chances to see you both on the screen, hearts beating, moving, wriggling, alive.
Until you weren’t. Hope, you were so still. Joy, you were struggling. You came silently into the night, so tiny, so precious, together. Always together. We held you, we touched your toes, we touched your nose. We gazed at you. Quiet in your Moses basket together, in the special room of butterflies and purple. The room at the end of the corridor, the room we didn’t know existed. Until we did. You must know we named you Hope & Joy not when we were dreaming, but when you were already gone. That might seem strange at first. We weren’t hopeful or joyful when you died. I was in agony. We were heartbroken. My heart and body ached. I craved for you both. I wailed. I cried in the shower. I couldn’t leave the house.
And yet, Hope & Joy, you had to be. We were proud of you, we loved you, you had brought us so much hope and joy. All those weeks carrying you inside me, they were real. They couldn’t be denied, deemed invalid, unimportant. I wouldn’t allow it. So, Hope & Joy, you had to be.
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