Siblings are Synonymous With Grief

Siblings are Synonymous with Grief

1295 words

I was supposed to be a twin.

There isn’t a tragic backstory behind why I’m not. My mother struggled to naturally get pregnant, so she and my father sought out IVF treatment. The first couple of times, none of the eggs took. Then, my twin and I did. A few weeks in, my twin never developed a heartbeat. Simple. No fun stories of how I ate my twin in the womb, or a tragic tale where they were stillborn or didn’t live long after being born.

Perhaps, in another life, I wouldn’t have dwelled on the idea of being a twin so much. Would we have been best friends? How similar would we have looked? What would their sex have been? What would their interests have been? Would they have been outgoing or more socially anxious like me? Would they have liked the sciences or been more drawn to the arts? What would their hobbies have been? Would they have dated or had significant others? What would their sexuality have been? Would they have been supportive of mine?

All of these have flown through my mind, as well as maladaptive daydreams of my twin and me hanging out, being friends, and more. And I will always wonder: would I care as much that I was supposed to be a twin if my younger siblings weren’t triplets?

The way IVF treatment works, or at least how it worked with my mother, was the doctors would implant four eggs at a time for there to be the highest chance of one taking and developing. So, with me, two eggs took, though only mine fully developed. When my mother went in the second time, wanting another child, three of the four eggs took and all three developed—thus, the triplets were born.

The triplets have always been best friends. They shared the same classes for so long growing up, they had the same friend group, and they always loved playing together. That isn’t to say I didn’t play with them for a few years, but I’m almost three years older than them. I hit puberty first, I started to mature earlier, and so I was no longer interested in the games that they played and quickly became annoyed by their immature personalities—I was a tween, it couldn’t be helped.

But the triplets never had that. They’re all the same age, going through puberty at the same time, experiencing the same challenges that life brings in the same moments as each other. There was a sameness held between them that I could never breach, an inherent bond formed while they were developing in the womb, and I was on the outside. I was ostracized in my own home, my own room, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. It was a biological difference, something in their shared DNA that wasn’t encoded in mine.

There’s a unique type of grief regarding sibling relationships. Of course, I had the same oldest sibling struggles—I was the guinea pig, I was the one to give advice, help with homework, explain which teachers to avoid if at all possible, and what to expect in life. And, of course, I felt the burden of being a drain of resources on my parents since they had three babies to watch over at the same time as young as in kindergarten. But the grieving process I’ve felt and feel is shared worldwide.

I’ll look at some of my friends and see how close they are with their siblings, and something in my chest will tug. I want that. I want a built-in best friend, someone with whom I can joke about my upbringing and who understands immediately. Someone who was there for all of the bad and the good, who intrinsically knows me because we’re practically the same. I want to have a sibling relationship where we text constantly, tell each other everything, sneak out and have teenage rebellions together, cover for one another, and more. I want more.

But I didn’t, and I can’t.

Even if my siblings were to mature—because they were allowed to act their age and as a result are immature, in comparison to me, who’s always been described as mature for their age—and understand everything from my point of view, I would still be an outsider. I wouldn’t fit in because I’m not one of them. They have a bond that can’t be broken, that was solidified and secure by the time my mother had her C-section towards the end of July.

It’s a heavy weight on my chest, something I’ve gotten so used to that I never feel it anymore. And perhaps that’s why I so badly wish my twin had survived. I want someone who knows me that well, who can’t be torn apart from me because the double helices in our DNA are entwined. I want someone whose room I can sneak into and bother in the middle of the night, someone whose clothes I can steal and items I can bicker over. I want the special kind of friendship that is only ever formed between siblings.

That isn’t to say I haven’t tried, either. My siblings are adults now—a whopping 18 years old—and one is in college. I’ve offered advice, I ask about jobs or relationships or crushes, but the gap between us may as well be the Grand Canyon, with how short and stunted the responses are. Sure, they’ll come to me to ask how to fill out their FAFSA or where to go to take out student loans, or what I did when I applied for my first job, but anything personal falls short and dissolves in the void of unforgeable friendships.

And perhaps that’s why I’m so cold to them. I don’t hug them, I pick on them, I refuse to say I love them—all normal sibling relationship characteristics. But I’ve stopped trying as hard, at least in a noticeable way. I allowed them to invade my and my sibling’s room and chat loudly to the point of overstimulation for me, I cleaned up after them for years because they never wanted to, I held in the anger that follows whenever I found a new interest or hobby and my sibling seems to become obsessed at the same time. But those efforts were never made back, and so I’ve learned to stop caring.

I hold back the anger and the tears that want to form at the sight of them playing DnD online with their friends once a week. I don’t scream when my side of the room is taken over by my sibling, or the mess I just cleaned is back within 24 hours. I’ll complain to my mother, but how could she ever understand? She lost her older brother when she was twelve years old; her relationship with him will always be tinted with loss and regret and fondness. And it isn’t like my dad can understand either, despite him also being the oldest of his three full siblings, because they all get along and seem to always have done.

Like all grief, this isn’t something I can set down and leave behind. It’s burrowed its way into my chest and made itself at home. It’s an all-encompassing ache I’ve learned to tune out and forget about. Even the greatest surgeon in the world wouldn’t be able to remove it because it’s become a part of who I am. It would be similar to attempting to remove my lungs or my heart and expecting me to continue living—I cannot. And so, I will simply have to save birthday candle wishes and shooting star prayers that one day, maybe one day, my siblings will reach back over the divide and hold on tight.