Closer than a brother....

Yesterday we said goodbye to my uncle Bo. He was heading off to Miami with his girlfriend Sandy after spending a blissful ten days in Atlanta with us. Logically we know he has his life in his own country with his own family and his own children and his own responsibilities, baggage, siblings, exes and spiel. But emotionally what washed over us was an almost tidal wave of devastation at the once again tangible loss for the life we once knew.  The distance between our lives now continues to ebb and flow in painful sodden pools.

When I grew up, Uncle Bo lived about 10kms away from our house with his then wife, and his two daughters. That was when things were right in the world. The phone rang early every morning, it was Bobo calling to speak to my dad. Often times we would intercept the phone call and make my dad wait to speak to Bo. I think Bobo may have been one of the first people who actually took the time to talk to us, as stumbling and bumbling kids are annoying on the phone, as conversation, as you know, is both an acquired art and a learned skill.

Prior to him living away from us, he actually lived in our caravan in our garden for a while.This was a perfectly normal experience for me. For Uncle Bo was also there on those times we took the caravan to Happy Wanderers caravan park, and then he, and my father, passed out in stretchers from sheer exhaustion after completing the Comrades Marathon together...I do not really have memories that separate them from that time in my life.

From the time I was old enough to walk around without my mother holding me, and old enough to have my own memories, I remember my own dad having a duality that encompassed not only his personality and his thought process and his emotions, but also physically and ever present here in this solid universe built of matter, gasses, liquid, etc... That in the human embodiments of the soul there were TWO of "him" walking around. Clones. Almost exact replicas of a single person. And one was called Garth aka Uncle Bobo... and the other was called Stirling, aka Daddy.

I speak of course from one daughters' selfish perspective of one of them... I know my cousins when they were very little and they would spend time at our house when their mom and dad were away, were only comforted at bed time, by my dad stepping in and pretending to be their father.... So abundantly evident that all of us, all five cousins, felt this same uncanny duality.

Beyond the normal and natural bond of monozygotic twins raised together, what lead to their even deeper fusion of their dependency on each other were a series of seemingly random and normal life time events. The boys were sent to boarding school a long long way from home from a very early age. I think growing up in the 50's, there is a certain harshness or even if you would like, brutality, that disassociated parents exerted onto their younglings.... especially when you were baby number five and baby number six (surprise!!) born to a 45 year old Catholic mom. You can imagine by that time... parents were aging, tired, and frazzled to have to endure the constant antics of four children. Then add in a surprise two. And well yes I am sure a good Catholic boarding school, full of discipline, old school values, sports and Latin  seemed like the best idea for the twins.

But in my opinion I believe even though they had a love and respect for their parents, they lost out on the intimacy that other children who are brought up close to their parents get to revel in. As a result, they bonded closer together, perhaps even closer together than they did in utero.Also featuring closely to them, fervently burned into the fibers of their beings were their siblings, three elder sisters and an elder brother. Remarkably close and cohesive, yet so incredibly random, each of them so dissimilarly similar...

An unfortunate military accident in Rhodesia later on left Bobo injured and sightless. This further solidified the twin bond of not only duty and devotion, but also of dependence and interpretation. Hes not only my brother, but I am his eyes.And yes of course not everything was happy like Tom and Nancy on their honeymoon, with such closeness and familiarity there comes a lot of friction, heat, contempt, and bickering. Constant arguing, shouting, incessant almost humorous swearing. But there is the underlying principle. We do not know what it feels like to be "them".

We are not even privy to half of the themness of them.  They almost do not make sense without each other. They share a common sense of humour, they find each others jokes or nuances the funniest. They pick and tease each other over minutia... yet their personal tastes are on the opposite spectrum. My uncle Bo was chastised heavily by my father this past week for choosing a jersey that contained polyester. My dad was almost hysterical at the thought of a polyester fibre touching his body. Yet my uncle calmly stood his ground and said he loved his new jersey.... My uncle would not keep quiet about his new favourite band the Alabama Shakes....Yet my dad couldn't wait to turn that crap off... But when my dad found  my hair in his ice cream bowl and came shooting up my stairs like a poisoned rabbit, complaining and performing loudly, my uncles girlfriend Sandy said "Wow Garth does EXACTLY the same thing!!!!!!!!"...


Ask which one is the kindest, and they will point fingers at each other. Ask which one is the better twin, and again the same will happen. They have given each other the clothing, literally off their backs. I don't know who was the dominant one, who lead and who followed. I think perhaps at different stages they alternated.

What was just amazing again to witness was their cohesiveness. When they are together it is like everything is sane and normal and noisy again in the universe. Yet their fates are to temporarily parted. For a reason beyond which we understand. But we know that He always has a perfect plan.