I grabbed the camera this morning to snap a picture of Lainie in her high chair. After I had my cute shot, Norah came bounding into the kitchen. I turned to her and said, "Cheese!" She gave me a perfect cheesy, squinty grin. These days she gets super excited to see the pictures we take of her so I sat the camera down on the table and showed her.
"That's you," I said.
"Oh, girl," she said.
"Yes, you are a girl," I confirmed.
"Milk," she said pointing at the cup visible at the corner of the screen.
"Yep, gotta have your milk, huh, kid."
She just looked at the picture for a second and then said, "Sister."
I froze, breath knocked out of me.
She, blessedly oblivious to my reaction, bounded away to play and see what Daniel Tiger was up to. I was thankful I was not holding the camera because I would have dropped it. I gasped, fighting gut wrenching sobs clawing their way up my throat. I tried to smile at Lainie, still sitting happily in her high chair, while swiping quickly at the heavy tears that had escaped. And I cleaned up breakfast.
Norah and Aislynn were identical twins. Identical.
I know Norah's identification of 'sister' in the camera was caused by us calling her big sister to Lainie. I know that she doesn't look in the full length mirror in her room, chattering and babbling, and what I see sometimes when my heart is heavy. But it still shatters me, stealing my breath and making my stomach roll and squeezing my heart in a vice.
We talk about Aislynn, her sister who was sick so she went to Heaven to live with Jesus. Jesus, who healed her and takes care of her until we get there to be together. But someday, we will talk about Aislynn and she will recognize what was lost. She lost her twin sister. And we will hold her and try to be there for her as her grief is fresh and I am terrified of that day.
These days, with these simple, innocent moments still have the power to take me back to that day we found out one of our babies would die. I would not get to be mommy to twins. I would not order two cribs, or buy two of everything. I would not argue with family who wanted to dress them the same or learn ways of telling them apart. I still feel robbed of those things.
I miss Aislynn, my baby girl, whose voice on earth I will never hear, whose footsteps will be forever absent from our house. I also miss my twins, that dream I held of being a twin mom. I miss them together, the Heininger twins.
