Celebrating Sixty-Plus Years of Being a Twin to a Special Needs Brother

Celebrating Sixty-Plus Years of Being a Twin with My Special-Needs Brother was birthed by my desire to honor and celebrate my twin on our sixtieth birthday. For several weeks in April of 2020, our sixtieth birthday month, I posted short daily posts on Facebook, telling stories about my twin, Marvin, known as "Buddy." My sister, Dorothy, assisted me on this project. We received many comments encouraging us to write a book. Two years later, we had the manuscript ready for submission.

This is the story of our family's journey with Buddy, who was brain damaged at birth and diagnosed with epilepsy at sixteen years of age. It's not a path we would have chosen for Buddy, and I've often wondered what life would have been like for us as twins if Buddy had not been a special-needs person. However, we would have missed out on so much had we not had our "Buddy."

We want our story to give testimony to the fact that joy and contentment in life are not dependent upon circumstances. Rather, it is living life in service to others with an attitude of gratitude and opening our hearts to recognize the blessings, tangible or intangible, that the Lord has given us.