When I was 5 years old, the police told my parents that my twin sister had died – 68 years later, I met a woman who looked exactly like me.

We compare our childhoods.

We don’t claim to have suddenly become best friends. You can’t make up for over 70 years over coffee.

But we are discussing it.

We compare our childhoods. We send each other photos. We point out small similarities. We also talk about difficult times:

My mother had three daughters.

One that she was forced to abandon.

The other one she lost in the forest.

Pain does not excuse secrets, but it explains them.

She kept it to herself and enveloped it in silence.

Was that right? No.

Can I understand how a person can collapse like that? Sometimes, yes.

Knowing that my mother loved a daughter she wasn’t allowed to keep, another she couldn’t save, and me, in her broken and silent way… that changed something.

Pain does not excuse secrets, but it explains them.