# Six Years After One of My Twins Died, My Daughter Came Home From Her First Day of School and Said, “Pack Another Lunch for My Sister”
I was thirty-seven years old when my daughter came home from her first day of school, dropped her backpack beside the front door, and said something that made my entire body go cold.
“Mommy, tomorrow can you pack another lunch for my sister?”
I was standing in the kitchen.
I had one hand on the refrigerator door and the other holding a glass of water.
For a moment, I thought I had misunderstood her.
“Your sister?”
She nodded as though the answer were obvious.
“Yes. My other sister.”
The glass slipped from my hand.
It hit the floor and shattered.
My daughter jumped.
I barely noticed.
Because six years earlier, I had given birth to twins.
And only one of them had come home.
## The Day Everything Changed
I was twenty-nine when I found out I was pregnant.
When the ultrasound revealed two heartbeats, I cried.
Not because I was afraid.
Because I was overwhelmed with happiness.
Twins.
Two babies.
Two little lives growing inside me.
My husband, Daniel, couldn’t stop smiling.
We spent months imagining what they would look like.
Would they have my eyes?
Daniel’s nose?
Would they be identical?
Would they be completely different?
We bought two cribs.
Two blankets.
Two tiny sets of clothes.
Two car seats.
We chose names.
For our first daughter, we chose Emma.
For the second, Lily.
I talked to them constantly.
I’d put my hands on my stomach and whisper:
“Mommy loves you both.”
I believed I would spend the rest of my life saying that sentence.
I never imagined that one of my daughters would never hear it.
## The Delivery
The pregnancy became complicated near the end.
Doctors monitored me closely.
