Growing up neither their teachers nor their close friends could tell identical twins Janice Morris and Caroline Satchell apart, which made them feel a bit shortchanged by life. Today they say they can’t imagine life without each other—they are “simpatico” and know they are lucky to have a powerful nourishing bond.
Originally aired July 21, 2006, on NPR’s Morning Edition.
Janice Morris (JM) and Caroline Satchell (CS)
JM: Hi I’m Janice Morris.
CS:And I’m Caroline Morris Sachel.
JM, CS: And we’re identical twins!
CS: People used to ask me “what’s it like to be a twin?’ The strangest thing is that I don’t have a separate memory from her. Our childhoods were identical. We used to just desperately want a best friend. Because when you’re young everybody wants a best friend. And I remember Janice and I used to get so frustrated because all of our friends would say ‘oh I like you both the same. I can’t pick one over the other’. And that just drove us nuts because we didn’t feel special. We were ‘twins’ all the time. We even had Sunday school teacher who didn’t even bother to learn our names. She just called us both twin: “Twin! Come here! Twin!”
JM: And the twin questions! I hated the twin questions. Always: ‘who’s older? Like being born 15 minutes ahead of someone made some difference in life. I always used to say Caroline, who was the one who was born first, looked so much older as a result. Then of course it was inevitably followed by the question ‘do you feel each others pain?’ ‘Do you have ESP?’
CS: No, we didn’t feel each other’s pain. No, we didn’t have ESP.
JM: ‘Do you have a secret language?’
CS: No!
JM: And of course the most common of all: ‘did you ever switch dates on each other?’ Which was…ridiculous. I mean I guess there are twins who do that, but not any self-respecting twins.
CS: Although to this day her husband cannot tell us apart on the phone because we do have very identical voices. But we did used to play this trick where we’d call up and both be on the phone and have a conversation with him and he’d never realize both of us was on the phone with him. (Laughter)
JM: But I think the plus side of being a twin, I mean, people used to ask me what’s it like to be a twin? And I’d always answer, ‘what’s it like not to be a twin?’ I mean it’s been my own identity for my whole life and I don’t really know what it’s like not to be. I do know the benefits though.
CS: No two people could be closer.
JM: We were the kind of twins that were ‘simpatico’ all of our lives. Used each other as sounding boards. And I knew if anything ever went wrong in my life I could count on her.
You know, whenever we have a problem we don’t have to explain it to one another.
CS: It was really wonderful to feel like I know somebody so completely. It’s just an insight no other two people can have. So I guess the one thing I want to say to you is you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. We really feel lucky. We really do.
JM: Being a twin was the best thing that ever happened to us.
CS: We recommend it to everybody!
When Deborah Wei and her family moved to the Philadelphia suburbs in the 1960’s, they were the only Asian family in their neighborhood. Deborah remembers how her mother made their new surroundings feel like home.
