Twins who lived 1 and 2 days

Our daughters Margaret Susan and Abigail Kathleen spent one and two days, respectively, in 2016. Their premature birth on February 27th was precipitated by Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome, a rare complication of identical twins caused by their shared placenta. They spent their brief time on this spinning planet in the NICU at Children's Hospital of Minneapolis, where we their parents had the aching agony and the surprising gift of holding each of them as they died. We never expected we'd add twins - or daughters - to our family; then we never expected we'd bury our children or teach our surviving sons to mourn them, at the tender ages of 6, 4, and 2. But Maggie and Abby taught us that the legacy of a life reaches beyond expectations, beyond criteria of worth as determined by life's length, success, and influence. Their impact upon the widening circles of our communities - families, friends, coworkers, acquaintances, and even strangers who followed their story on social media - has upended our own definitions of love and joy and suffering. An outsider's assessment or a stark medical report would declare our daughters' lives to be too short and too full of pain. But these tiny girls of barely over 1 lb each were graced to know nothing but love and give nothing but love in return. To be certain, we join the madding crowds who decry 2016 as a dumpster fire disaster of months. But as the year draws to an end, we can't help but celebrate the spark of the smallest spirits who inhabited it and the strength of their souls that stay with us, mysteriously and without a shadow of doubt. The world, our lives, and this long, hard year were transformed because Abby and Maggie passed through them with love.