They say I can't possibly remember but I do, I know I do. I remember the life next to me in that cosy space and the knowledge that I wasn't alone. I swear I can still feel the sense of security and comfort of that moment. I wish i was still there with you next to me …. we had each other for such a short time.

"Ten more units, NOW!"

“Warn surgery, we are going up.”

My arrival was too quick and everything went wrong. The warmth of our cocoon was ruptured in a craze of blood and metal. Cold air swooped over my naked skin and into the gap created between us - the shock making me yell and scream. Bundled up into well-worn but clean blankets, I was held in a vice like grip and rushed to the heated cot. Lungs that were barely able to gulp in air were not big or strong enough to relay the total panic and fear I felt. Where was my mirror? Where was the other part of me?

"We need to MOVE."

“The other….” The trolley was gone through the delivery room doors.

Noise, people, shapes, panic. I remember...remember?...call it what you will...there is a blueprint of that moment on my soul that has cast a shadow over the rest of my life. Up in theatre, a decision had to be made and made quickly. Only one could be saved and I got our mother instead of you. It wasn’t my fault, I had no choice who came out first, who survived.

Gloved hands, quick and nimble, put tubes into me and stuck wires onto my pinking flesh. They didn’t care for my cries, cries were a good sign, they were a vocal display of my survival. I had been saved and that’s what mattered. The cot made everything else seem so distant and muted. I was trapped inside and no one knew what i was crying for, who i was crying for.

"Sorry love". The tube was rammed as usual – sweaty, claustrophobic, dirty and impersonal. My daily commute takes me across London and for 45 minutes it is probably the only place I can feel close to you again. I've tried to find peace everywhere - hill tops in India, tropical shores in the Caribbean, remote farmhouses in Scotland. They all gave me the tranquil setting I was looking for but did nothing for the inner turmoil. I needed to be 'held' by human life but couldn't stand anyone too close. I found my solace in a city of 10 million people and in the heated cot of the tube.

I have no proof but I feel somehow that you are still out there waiting for your turn. Maybe you should have had this life and I have just borrowed it for now. Maybe when I give it back, you will blossom and be the stronger half that I never was.