Genetics and Providence
When parallel lines intersect:
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Identical twins Julian and Adrian Riester were born seconds apart 92 years ago. They died hours apart this week.
The Buffalo-born brothers were also brothers in the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor. Professed friars for 65 years, they spent much of that time working together at St. Bonaventure University, doing carpentry work, gardening and driving visitors to and from the airport and around town…
They died Wednesday at St. Anthony Hospital in St. Petersburg, Fla., Brother Julian in the morning and Brother Adrian in the evening.
Both died of heart failure, said Father James Toal, guardian of St. Anthony Friary in St. Petersburg, where the inseparable twins lived since moving from western New York in 2008.
Very interesting. I wonder whether these brothers were included in any of the twin studies that have been made over the years, and whether the geneticists will see anything more than coincidence in their deaths.
On another genetic issue, a quick look at the French Open website this morning shows that one of the contestants in the Boys’ Singles is the American Bjorn Frantangelo. What kind of ethnic mix leads to that name?
The influence of genetics on time of death is a dubious explanation. It is not unusual for married couples, who are genetically unrelated, to die within weeks, days or even hours of each other. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day too.
Pheromones could be a better place to look for a cause than DNA. (But not in the case of Adams and Jefferson, who were hundreds of miles apart and hadn’t seen each other in years.)
@Nicholas. I’ll wager his parents were Borg fans.
Gene? How about mental telepathy?
Whatever the science it, it says to me that they lived their lives in tandem, and that is how they died. No need for theory here.
I’m not a doctor, but it sounds like your classic slow-acting gypsy curse to me.
Funny, Abe:-)
There could be another explanation. (Herbs from the monastery garden?) Also I’ve read that the biologists have discovered that individual cells have a bunch of little tab-like parts that are necessary for a cell to use in reproducing itself. Each reproduction process destroys one tab, and the tab is not replaced by the cell, so eventually the cell runs out of tabs and cannot reproduce itself as needed. With enough cells permanently without tabs, repair of the body is stymied, so death of the whole is inevitable. In other words, wer’re gonna die. Or something like that.
Maybe the twins, living their very similar, quiet lives ran out of tabs at the same rate, and so died at almost the same time. Still, their dying within two hours does make one wonder.
I believe there is something to the notion that the will to live is an important factor in determining whether a person lives or dies. I’m told this accounts for the fact that many elderly die on or shortly after reaching a milestone – e.g. they live until their next birthday and then “let go”. The same explanation is offered for the cases of spouses who die within a short space of one another – the surviving spouse loses the desire to keep going after the first spouse goes.
Sounds about as good as any other explanation offered here :-)
Jim P, –
There’s a lot of evidence that depression can affect the immune system badly. I bet that would account for many of the close-in-time deaths of spouses.
I attended the seminary at St. Bonaventure (Christ the King) in the ’70′s but were not aware of them in that era. Nevertheless, I think the cause of death — “heart failure” — seems more than poetically significant as it seems that they may have been joined in that mysterious love that organ signifies way throughout their lives… RIP, fratres….