There is a cruel perception that when a twin dies at birth, it is less of a tragedy than the loss of a single baby. When I lost my twin son, I was expected to carry on, to focus on the baby that was still alive and to feel comfort when people said "At least you've got one". It was difficult for even close family and friends to acknowledge or appreciate my grief.
Now five years later, my son John realises all too well the special bond he is missing when he sees twins together. "Why doesn't God let Brendan come down from Heaven?" he asks. "I want to play with him."
This painful experience of twin bereavement is highlighted in a new book The Lone Twin. Its author, psychotherapist Joan Woodward, motivated by the death of her own twin, interviewed over 200 lone adult twins in England and Wales about their loss.
Woodward explains "I refused to go out of the house because my sister Pammie had died at the age of three of meningitis, and the world seemed too terrifying to me. I was very aware of all sorts of feelings that I had, that didn't seem to happen to singletons, so that I wanted to meet many more lone twins."
She discovered that nearly all the lone twins she met shared a similar sense of confusion and loss. Some had deep fears of being alone or a sense of intense and constant loneliness. They saw themselves as the odd one out, different from others and lifelong loners.
Joan remembers how her relationship with her mother was affected. "I could never make up to my mother for the loss of my twin sister. I had many feelings that I could never please her and this is very common. What one is striving to do is to make up to one's parents for the loss and there's always some guilt at being survivors in all kinds of traumatic experiences. Why should one be here when the other person isn't?"
Dr Elizabeth Bryan, director of the Multiple Births Foundation, based at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London, who has counselled many bereaved twins, says: "Sometimes the surviving twins may imagine that they've had an unfair amount of nourishment in the womb, and of course that may actually be true, but through no fault of theirs. Perhaps they were born first and the delay in the birth of the second baby may have caused the damage that killed the baby. So sometimes, medically speaking, it's true that they have survived at the expense of their brother or sister. But they have to be helped to understand that there's no way that anything could have been done differently and certainly nothing that they could have done."
Jill Deeley was one of the first to be interviewed for Joan Woodward's study. Her identical twin sister, Jacqueline, was strangled by the cord at birth. As an adult, Jill found her sister's grave on their birthday. Jill left a chrysanthemum, their birth month's flower and a sprig of rosemary for remembrance on the grave. She took a photograph, describing it as "a comfort, the only direct link to my twin".
Jill feels she always missed her twin. "During childhood, there were times when I felt very lonely. In some ways, we who have lost our twins at birth feel cheated far more than adult twins do because at least they have had some of their lives together."
Dr Bryan agrees. "I think that those who haven't had the chance to remember their twins as individuals have nothing substantive. They have no pictures, no actual events that they could remember, and they find that very painful."
The Woodward study has led to the formation of the Lone Twin Network, a group of over 500 surviving twins who meet in Birmingham and London, helping surviving twins to get in touch, knowing that their difficult emotions will always be understood.
Dr Bryan stresses the importance of celebrating their twinship. "That's something that they usually don't have any chance to do. Many of them wish to be thought of as twins, they're proud of being a twin and that should be respected. I encourage them to express their feelings, to remember their twin, be it by writing or painting. It helps enormously to meet other bereaved twins." Parents of lone twins are advised to be as open as possible with the survivors to help them to come to terms with their loss. Jill Deeley says: "You should always know that you were a twin and it should never be hidden from you because it would come as such a shock later in life, if you didn't know."
The Lone Twin by Joan Woodward is published by Free Association Books. Price: £15.95
The Lone Twin Network, PO Box 5653, Birmingham, B29 7JY.