I didn’t see it because I’m mourning. I lost my twin brother.
Every day thousands of people around the world mourn. Some without anyone showing any sympathy. Others who receive many displays of affection. Sometimes more than you could have ever imagined. Occasionally words of comfort come from strangers. Sometimes people you haven’t heard from in years. Suddenly, people appear who revive old memories, rekindle a friendship that has been put on hold or rekindle an old love that you had forgotten.
Last Thursday my twin died in the early afternoon. I got to the hospital just in time to close her eyes and kiss her. I don’t think he noticed. We had talked the night before. Two or three minutes. Not anymore, because he was in a very bad condition. I stroked his arms, which were blue from multiple blood tests and failed coronary tests. We looked into each other’s eyes for the last time. “It’s been a tough year for bessons! These are his last words. I always called him “my twin”, he always insisted on calling me “the Besson”, which is what my grandfather Fournier called us both.
A BAD COTTON
We’ve spun bad cotton for a few months. Late last summer Claude had pain in one leg – the left one – and started walking with a cane. I also had pain in one leg last summer: the left one! Like him I bought a stick. Now I have two sticks. Marie-José, his widow, gave me Claudes.
If I tell this detail, it is because it represents everything that we have lived together for so many years.
There is a mysterious connection between the identical twins. An ancestry that scientists have studied without coming to any precise conclusions. Identical twins, called “identical” (sounds like a disease!), are always born in the same ratio, that is four identical births for every 1000 births. So we are a minority. But a minority that we should not feel sorry for because we are privileged.
Aside from the flu, mumps, migraines, back, tooth, and leg ache that we shared with Claude and I, my life as a monozygote was one big adventure. I would have to be very ungrateful to say the opposite.
GLORY TO MY MOTHER
As children we glorified my mother. Both dressed alike, she led us (I should say she exhibited us!) through the streets of Waterloo, pausing every ten steps for compliments. Not wanting to see us grow up, she only reconciled putting our shorts away in the closet when she received orders from the boarding school supervisor to buy us pants.
We were relieved because knees in the air when you’re 12 is humiliating. The rest of our life together was almost a guilty pleasure.
Talking to you about TV today would have been a decoy. I haven’t turned on the TV since Claude died. Apparently I missed a good Olivier Gala. I’ll see later. In the last few days I have taken the time to relive my whole life with my twin. On Thursday I will resume the course of my life… and my chronicles.
