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You always hear the stories of how identical twins have a close bond that cannot be broken, each feeling the other's pain or happiness, finishing each other's sentences. I cannot say that ours was more special than other twins - all I can tell you is that our bond was very special to me.

When we were children, we went everywhere together. We dressed alike; we played the same games, had the same favorite color and we even shared a room. Sometimes it seemed our thoughts mingled and we would think exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. Without a single word spoken, we would look at each other and then laugh together hysterically, completely baffling our parents and whoever else was present.

In 1979 mother gave us gold chains for our eighth birthday, each containing half of a broken heart. Her nickname, Sissy, was engraved on the back of mine and she had Missy, which is what she called me, engraved on hers. We loved our hearts and wore them everyday. We would very often stop and put the two together to form one beautiful gold heart.

Behind the country home we lived in was a beautiful, golden-grassed field from where butterflies would emerge every summer. Sissy and I spent many happy days in that tall grass chasing the delicate creatures in the sunshine of our youths. It was that field, the place where Sissy and I spent so many happy hours, that holds so many wonderful memories for me.

When I was nine years old, I had a terrible pain in my side. My parents feared I might have appendicitis so they rushed me to see the Doctor in a nearby town. They were so relieved to learn I had a minor kidney infection and that a course of antibiotics would clear it up. For two years, everything was fine. Sissy and I continued to live our lives, spending our winters in our room with our imaginations in high gear and our summers in our golden field, chasing butterflies and each other.

On our birthday in the summer of 1981, Sissy and I were in the field playing, trying hard not to peek at the house where our birthday party preparations were actively underway. Suddenly, while running after a particularly elusive butterfly, Sissy cried out in pain. When I reached her Sissy was lying in a fetal position in the tall grass. I could feel her pain, and although I was only 10 I knew this was different than the pain I had experienced several years before. Our parents rushed her to the doctor who'd treated me, and he again prescribed a round of antibiotics, only this time they didn't have

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