This is one of those fascinating true tales they write books about... Out of Canada, we get the story of Lily MacLeod and Gillian Shaw, identical twins from China who were split up at birth, adopted by two separate couples in Ontario, and are now growing up apart, yet together, as sisters: Identical twins adopted from China by two different Ontario families grow up 400 km apart.
The girls were born in China, separated by circumstance and parceled out to two different families. Whether by fortune or design - no one will ever know - the couples who adopted them were both from Ontario. And they figured it out.The two families, who live several hours apart, have made sacrifices to make sure the girls grow up as sisters. It definitely doesn't sound like the ideal way for these two to be raised, but who am I to judge? It's sure as hell going to be a lot harder when they become teenagers.
Kirk and Allyson MacLeod adopted their daughter, Lily, 12 years ago and brought her home to Keswick, north of Toronto. Mike and Lynette Shaw adopted their daughter, Gillian, 12 years ago and brought her home to Amherstburg, just outside Windsor. When the parents discovered the connection, they vowed to raise them as sisters.
The situation is as rare as it is fascinating: Lily and Gillian are one of only a handful of twin pairs in the world known to be growing up in this way — apart, yet together. They are an accidental experiment, giving researchers a new window into human behaviour by allowing them to study the effects of nature and nurture in real-time. For science, Lily and Gillian are a treasure.
And for the people raising them — strangers thrown together by extraordinary circumstances — the unusual arrangement has made them pioneers of a whole new kind of blended family. They are making up the rules as they go.
But the more I think about it, I have to ask, would this unusual arrangement -- splitting up the siblings into different families -- have happened if the sisters in question were Caucasian twins, adopted from somewhere other than China? Read the rest of the article here.
