People are fascinated with twins - intrigued by their closeness with each other. But what happens when twins are separated, especially by death? Twin mortality is high, but it is not uncommon for a lone twin's loss, at any age, to go unmarked. They need extra help and support to take them through the loss of their 'other half.' The loss of a twin can be devastating to the survivor. Working as an Attachment therapist, Joan Woodward uses John Bowlby's theories as her conceptual base for her research. In this book, she suggests that the highly significant attachment that twins make with each other may begin, for many, before birth. She explains their closeness and tragic experience of death and bereavement. The Lone Twin includes parental attitudes to the surviving twin, the surviving twin's guilt, the ability to cope, and the effect of loss in childhood and adulthood. Of particular interest are those who lost their twin at birth. Throughout, the book is illustrated by the words of surviving twins' affecting accounts of their experiences of bereavement. This is an important and rare book for many professionals - counselors, psychotherapists, social workers, psychologists, and teachers - who come into contact with bereaved twins and yet have little understanding of the dynamics of twinship and of twin loss. Written in jargon-free language, the book is also for the twins themselves, their families, partners, and friends. It gives lone twins the chance to have their voices heard, and it gives professionals the opportunity to develop more effective ways of supporting the lone twin. This greatly expanded and revised second edition details the progress that has been made in the ten years since the book was first published, along with the growth of The Lone Twin Network.

More than thirty years ago, David Loftus’s cherished identical twin, John, passed away. Ever since, a day hasn’t passed without David feeling the loss. In 1987, after recovering from a brain tumour, John contracted meningitis and found himself back in hospital for treatment. David, as always, was by his side. They were opening their twenty-fourth birthday presents when a fatally miscalculated routine injection forced John into a coma. He died within two weeks. Over the past year, David has spent an hour every day remembering John and recording his story by hand. Diary of a Lone Twin is the product of that daily ritual – a powerful and deeply personal account that covers everything from enchanting and charmingly evoked childhood vignettes to the acute loneliness and raw pain that followed John’s death. In sharing this beautifully written diary, award-winning and internationally acclaimed photographer David Loftus provides a rare insight for anyone who wishes to understand the bond between identical twins, and the unique bereavement of a lone twin that few people will ever experience.

'It's hard to cry with sadness while you're laughing with love' This is the story of a much-loved young woman, who died much too early, and the way that she lived her life in the fullest way she knew, right until the very end. This is the story of my sister Nicole's journey with breast cancer, from her diagnosis to her death. But the story goes beyond that, in the same way that Nicole took everything beyond the ordinary. It's also a story of how she managed to live her life, really live it, in the most expansive definition of the word, the whole way through, right up until her last heartbeat. A woman who turned the intrusion of cancer into her life into something that she used to expand her, that made her bigger in so many ways. It's the story of a woman who looked for the lesson and the gift in every moment, and not only treasured it, but used it to create more. It's the story of what it's like to be the sister of a woman who carried this off. It's the story of how you get through it as an outsider, how you help, how you hinder, and how you come out the other side. Living life with a sister with cancer was a challenging but enriching experience - it changed the way I live my life. I hope reading our story gives you something too.

The prize-winning, “exceptionally moving” memoir of a family boat trip, an IRA bombing, and a teenager’s loss of his twin brother (The Telegraph). Christopher Ewart-Biggs Literary Award Winner and PEN/JR Ackerley Prize Nominee On an August weekend in 1979, fourteen-year-old Timothy Knatchbull joined his family on a boat trip off the shore of Mullaghmore in County Sligo, Ireland. By noon, an Irish Republican Army bomb had destroyed the boat, leaving four dead. The author survived, but his grandparents, family friend, and twin brother did not. Lord Mountbatten, his grandfather, was the target, and became one of the IRA’s most high-profile assassinations. Knatchbull and his parents were too badly injured to attend the funerals of those killed, which only intensified their profound sense of loss. Telling this story decades later, Knatchbull not only revisits these terrible events but also writes an intensely personal account of human triumph over tragedy—a story of recovery not just from physical wounds but deep emotional trauma. From a Clear Blue Sky takes place in Ireland at the height of the Troubles and gives compelling insight into that period of Irish history. But more importantly, it brings home that while calamity can strike at any moment, the human spirit is able to forgive, to heal, and to move on. “A minute by minute story of what happened that day, and what happened afterwards.” —Daily Mail “This is an extremely moving book. Beyond providing a phenomenally detailed evocation of his own family’s trauma, Knatchbull has lots of wise things to say about how we survive horrors—of all kinds—in our lives.” — Zoë Heller, author of the Booker Prize finalist Notes on a Scandal “A very poignant, clearsighted, heartbreaking but ultimately positive account.” —Hugh Bonneville, The New York Times

Honorbale Mention for the 2020 ICQI Qualitative Book Award! On her death bed, Laurel Richardson’s sister whispers a deep family secret to her. Those whispered words send the famed sociologist and author on a personal exploration of a lifetime. Lone Twin: A True Story of Loss and Found is an extraordinary story of a search for identity, wholeness, and forgiveness. Grounded in the cultures of mid-Twentieth Century Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles, Lone Twin weaves the personal with the social, cultural, and political. Richardson shares fascinating, resonant, and humorous stories about her relationships with a suicidal poet, a Swedish fencer, a budding scientist, a Puerto Rican family, a Mafia family, her Russian Jewish and Irish Catholic family, and her famous cousin, Laura Foreman. Her story is at once singular and plural. As Richardson shares her journey towards wholeness and forgiveness, readers are invited to consider their own journeys and ask: Is there something missing in my life? How do I justify my existence? Lone Twin is an exquisitely written book about identity, the search for people who understand us, and the ties that bind. This outstanding example of literary sociology can be used as supplemental reading in a range of courses in American studies, gender studies, social science, child development, and creative writing. It can be read entirely for pleasure and is a great choice for book clubs. An appendix offers discussion questions, projects, and creative writing exercises.

Lone parenthood is an increasing reality in the 21st century, reinforced by the diffusion of divorce and separation. This volume provides a comprehensive portrait of lone parenthood at the beginning of the XXI century from a life course perspective. The contributions included in this volume examine the dynamics of lone parenthood in the life course and explore the trajectories of lone parents in terms of income, poverty, labour, market behaviour, wellbeing, and health. Throughout, comparative analyses of data from countries as France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, and Australia help portray how lone parenthood varies between regions, cultures, generations, and institutional settings. The findings show that one-parent households are inhabited by a rather heterogeneous world of mothers and fathers facing different challenges. Readers will not only discover the demographics and diversity of lone parents, but also the variety of social representations and discourses about the changing phenomenon of lone parenthood. The book provides a mixture of qualitative and quantitative studies on lone parenthood. Using large scale and longitudinal panel and register data, the reader will gain insight in complex processes across time. More qualitative case studies on the other hand discuss the definition of lone parenthood, the public debate around it, and the social and subjective representations of lone parents themselves. This book aims at sociologists, demographers, psychologists, political scientists, family therapists, and policy makers who want to gain new insights into one of the most striking changes in family forms over the last 50 years. This book is open access under a CC BY License.