Years after drawing his 'twin' in kindergarten, an only child discovers a staggering truth

We all have our childhood drawings tucked away somewhere at home, and most of us probably never thought much of them at the time. But for one man, u/semispectral, an old kindergarten notebook turned out to be much more than that. He recently shared a story about flipping through his childhood journal and coming across something that stopped him in his tracks. The man, AJ, 32, had flown home to visit his mom in California for the first time in six years. While there, they started sorting through old boxes from his grandmother’s storage unit, as reported by Newsweek.

That’s how he stumbled upon a notebook. "It was near the bottom of a few boxes that belonged to my mom, so since I was visiting, we decided to open them up and go through them," he said. At first, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Then, he turned the page. There, written in his kindergarten handwriting, were the words, "Today, I sat with my brother." Sharing the photo of the page on Reddit, he wrote, "When I was little, I’d tell my parents about my twin brother. I found my kindergarten notebook today. I was an only child." 

He had no memory of writing that entry, but the feeling behind it wasn’t unfamiliar. Even as a kid, he had always sensed that someone was missing. "I'm an artist, so they assumed I had imaginary friends, until I started saying he was my brother and his name was Samuel," he recalled. He also shared how his parents "never really encouraged" him to "talk about it like they did with other silly things I'd say." For years, his parents never explained why. Then, when he was 15, his mom finally told him the truth, which he shared on Reddit, "I learned much later that my mother had miscarried one of her twins. I guess now I know why she’d get upset."

He further said that his mother miscarried his brother around 30 weeks and said they "were fraternal twins, brothers." Doctors explained that because she never expelled the fetus, AJ had likely "absorbed" his twin in the womb—a phenomenon called vanishing twin syndrome. But when she told him about Samuel, he didn’t feel shocked. He didn’t even feel sad.

He explained, "It was just sort of a fact of life, like, of course, I had a twin. I knew that already." That connection faded as he got older, but he never really questioned it. His story struck a chord with many on Reddit, especially those who had experienced something eerily similar.

u/random_agency wrote, "Sounds like the beginning of a Stephen King novel." u/chainlinkchipmunk shared, "When my oldest was around 3 or 4, she talked all the time about her older brother. Apparently, he had drowned, so that’s why he wasn’t around. But she told stories about them spending time together too—it was really unsettling." u/No_Flamingo9331 said, "My sister had a twin that was miscarried, and when she was little she told our mom that there used to be another one of her, but she’s gone now. I’m an atheist, but these kinds of things give me pause." u/FeelingSoil39 added, "It’s absolutely wild to see how many of you are actually out there, just here telling your own stories. Truly fascinating and strange stuff all at the same time."