Who's on First

That year at College in the Cornfields definitely had its Abbott & Costello moments. It really didn't help matters having the three of us answering to Who, What and Why. But that was really just the tip of the iceberg.

My first room assignment at that college was in the basement prayer room of one of the girls' dorms. Overflow housing for those of us who decided late. There were five of us. Kara, Karen, Danielle, me, and one other who moved out as I was moving in. She was my roommate for about an hour.

A week later, I left the basement and moved in with Kimber, the first floor RA of the other dorm. Why and Ampf were in the rooms across the hall, Lori from the group of transfer students was on the other side of the stairs, and Karen from the basement was next door to her.

On October 3rd, Dr. Dobson spoke on campus. The choir was supposed to perform that afternoon, and I was moving again. To Lori's room. (That would be roommate #6, in case you're counting.) It was a crazy stressed-out sort of day, what with trying to move, go to class, and prepare for a concert. Of course, a week later, I was without a roommate, since she moved to the music house. I spent the next week lobbying for Stacey or Sarah to move downstairs, but I ended up with- irony of ironies- that girl who was my roommate for one hour that first day.

I barely met her in August. I hadn't seen her since that brief introduction. However, she quickly assimilated into the group I had already been a part of, and the others in that group quickly began to ask if Who and I were sisters.

It wasn't that we looked all that similar. We were just so frighteningly alike. We were twin sisters, separated by six months, two timezones, and different sets of parents. We discovered that we had strangely parallel lives. And on one particular night very shortly after we met, it became clear that we were meant to be roommates.

A bunch of us went down to the Baptist church where some boys from school were giving a concert. I don't know exactly how, but Who, who was already having a hard day, disappeared. The rest of us looked for her. Nothing. It was getting darker and colder, and we were worried.

About an hour after she disappeared, we were out looking again, now with jackets and flashlights. Four or five of us wandered through town wondering where she could have gone, and hoping nothing had happened. I could hear thoughts flowing through my mind like ticker-tape. I could see my roommate huddled in a dark corner. There was brick. And I knew the ticker-tape thoughts were hers.

It wasn't all that long before we were back at the Baptist church. At the back of the brick building, near the parking lot, there was a particularly dark, shadowy recessed corner. She was huddled in that corner exactly as I had seen her in my mind. While my friends talked to her, I walked out to the middle of the parking lot and had a chat with God about what on earth was going on and why I knew the things I knew that night.

Back in our room, Who and I had our own chat to process through what had happened. We were both pretty weirded out by the ticker-tape, which had been exactly what she was thinking while she was missing. While nothing quite that extreme happened again, she and I both regularly knew what the other was thinking.

One night, not long after that, we were all at dinner in the Dining Commons (gag), and Who was playing with her food. She created a dinner boy. His name was Henry. Sadly, Henry was not long for this world, and soon after the dinner boy's birth, we were giving eulogies. Ry-ry was sitting next to Who that night. Someone decided that he was Henry's father. He gave a lovely eulogy.

I may not have been the only one whose mind made the jump, but I was the only one who went with it. Ry-ry was my friend. Who was my friend, my roommate, my twin sister six months older from whom I was separated at birth. I looked at her. I looked at him. I looked at her again and said hmm. I looked at him and said hmm. A few of the others caught on and echoed with hmms of their own. Ry-ry and Who both looked at me and said NO.

Before Christmas, they were dating. And, as you already know, for you read the previous post, they got married a few years later.

Eventually, Who and I began calling ourselves God's practical joke on the school. We were so much alike, and we were roommates. Our friends, who knew better, thought we were sisters. And that's exactly what we ended up being.

I haven't seen my twin sister in nine years. I haven't heard from her in two. I missed the wedding. I missed her mom's funeral. I haven't met her daughter Munchmunch, who will be three in two months.

I wish Illinois and SoCal weren't so far apart.

Rae and Ry, blessings to you, my friends, wherever you are.