Tomorrow is September. I have been thinking a lot about this time last year. It was a hard time then. And, in many ways, much harder than it is now.

Darry was enormous, exhausted and uncomfortable. And although she was in excellent health, it was clear that she needed to slow down at work if she wanted to stay that way and get to full term (38 weeks for twins). So she spent the last few weeks of her pregnancy at home, mostly parked in the single air conditioned room of our house, during one of the hottest summers ever, emerging only to eat and drink and go to the bathroom.

I was sick with worry — every time she made a sound I would ask in a panicked voice if she was in labor. There is so much fear imposed on a twin pregnancy, almost like an illicit promise you will have sickly, premature babies who need to spend some time in the NICU. I worried for the little creatures in her belly. I worried about Darry’s health and recovery from the Caesarean we had scheduled, because one baby was breech and not budging. And I worried most of all about my ability to continue taking care of Serafina, the house, our lives, Darry, the babies who would be here so soon, while working full time and trying to push through the fog of a enormous grief.

In the month before we found out we were having twins, my father died from pancreatic cancer, punctuating a brief and sad illness. And then my younger brother died from a blood clot, in a sudden, unexpected and tragic way. I was beaten to a pulp by my father’s death, run over by a train by my brother’s death and shocked into a sort of delirium from the ultrasound where we learned, halfway through Darry’s pregnancy, that her body had made two babies, all on its own.

I feel sometimes like the experience of having twins is not mine to talk about. I do not know the surprise, the awe, the stress or the burden of having a body responsible for making two more lives, nurturing their growth and health and ushering them safely to this side of the womb. I do not know the work of having two tiny mouths attached to my breasts (often at the same time!), wholly dependent on me to feed them, literally keep them alive and help them grow in that intense first year. I don’t know what it’s like to wake up multiple times in the night, quietly pick up one fussing baby, nurse her back to slumber and then pick up her sister to do it all over again, again and again and again. These are the things, plus so many more things, that Darry has done all by herself with the most unbelievable display of patience, endurance, strength and love. Mothers of multiples are truly superheroes.

When we saw those two  heads on the screen for the first time, Darry howled and pleaded with the universe. She wondered how could she possibly do this? She became hysterical. And in the next few weeks, she spiraled into a kind of grief — over the loss of the childbirth experience she thought she would have, over the loss of the whole mothering experience she thought she might have. Grief is such a lonely, individual experience. I could see she was deep in it, because I was in my own.

I spent that whole spring howling and pleading with the universe. During father’s dying and death, I was dragged through painful, dark spaces of our complicated relationship because he was Christian and I am queer. In his final weeks, his wife refused to allow me, Darry and Serafina to visit them as a family; my father’s wish to see his granddaughter one last time was blocked by hate. If visiting without Darry was the only way I could visit, I chose not to; that choice destroyed my relationships with the rest of my father’s family. I was pummeled and the only person who understood and defended me was my baby brother.

Three weeks after our father’s death, my brother started acting strange. Strange enough that my mother took him to the ER; several hours later a giant mass was discovered on his brain. Before we could get a diagnosis, Marc died of a pulmonary embolism on his third day in the hospital. He was so dear to me, he was my responsibility his whole life long. Then so swiftly, so mercilessly, I was dropped into a solitude ten thousand fathoms deep. The ground was gone.

The experience of having twins may not be mine, but the experience of being a parent to what spontaneously felt like a very large family is mine. And the experience of having to meet this challenge in such a difficult, unstable time is mine. I have walked out of the deepest hurt of grief, I have processed so much of it, but the secondary complications, like fatigue, mood swings, sadness and isolation, are all still there.

My grief has been the greatest pain I’ve ever known. Parenting through this pain is, I pray, the hardest work I will ever do. I have wondered so many times how I can do this, even as I am doing it.

I know this, though: the day we learned we were having twins, I felt like the universe was showing me something holy. I lost two souls and two souls found us.

At the end of this month, the twins will be 1. They arrived as we planned, big, healthy and perfect: 7.5 pounds each. Darry’s recovery was easier than any doctor or nurse could have predicted. Within days, she was walking around, pain-free, like nothing had ever happened. The babies have nursed from their first day like experts. They have been easy, happy infants. They have brought an enormous love to our lives, even on the most difficult days, that we never expected we would have. They have been the light that has filled my twice-broken heart.