Michelle

My twin’s death has tattooed an awareness of life’s shortness on my soul. I will never again be able to slip into that intoxicating delusion that death is not coming for me too. Maybe my slicing awareness has something to do with the fact that she is my other half, and now my other half is no longer on earth.

How did I get through, honestly? Yes, it was God. No, it wasn’t by my non-existent strength. But what else was at work, behind the scenes, you could say? One answer I have come to—and it is a scary one in a way (I’ll explain more later)—is that I had people praying for me.

I learned about my mom’s death from a text. Like black splinters, the teeny print on my phone screen proclaimed the end of one of the most precious people in my life. I had been expecting the news and wasn’t surprised it came the way it did. It was spring, 2020.