Jeremy Siegel: This is GBH's Morning Edition. And today, February 29th, we have a Leap Day story for you: One that involves two sets of twins, both born on a leap day decades apart, and one unintentional lie that brought them all closer together. To kick things off, here's our story's unreliable narrator.
Jed Lippard: So my name is Jed Lippard, and my husband and I have twin boys who were born on Leap Day in 2008. We live in Lexington, Massachusetts, and I am an educator. Earlier in my career as a teacher, I had the good fortune of working with someone who's now a dear friend.
Ruth Whalen Crockett: My name is Ruth Whalen Crockett and I live in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Lippard: And she and her sister are identical twins.
Nora Whalen: I'm Nora Whalen and I am from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Lippard: Also were born on Leap Day.
Ruth Whalen Crockett: Our parents did not know they were having twins until Nora was born.
Nora Whalen: I have a really special photo of a picture of our mother holding us in the hospital with the calendar.
Lippard: I recall having had a conversation with Ruth not long after my boys were born, where she told me that when she and her sister Nora turned 16 — or 4 — that they made a pact with each other that no matter where they are in the world, every four years, on their actual birthday, February 29th, they are going to drop everything and get together and be together in person. I tell my kids this all the time, that I have these friends, they made this pact. I was sort of impressing upon them this idea for their own connection moving forward. And fast forward to eight years later. It so happened that Ruth and Nora and I were all together at a conference, an education conference.
Ruth Whalen Crockett: This was the first professional conference that Nora and I were attending together, so we were just totally delighted. He was there, and he comes up to us and he thanks us. And he says, I am so glad that the two of you always celebrate your birthday together, because I have told my boys, I've insisted that they spend every leap year together, because that is what the Whalen twins do.
Lippard: I was so excited to see them. I had met Nora before she had come and visited when Ruth and I were teaching together. And I said, so what are you two doing for your birthday? And they turned to me and looked incredulous and said —
Ruth Whalen Crockett: Jed, we haven't celebrated our birthday together since we were turning 4, like, 16 years old. And he said, what?
Lippard: And I paused. I said, didn't you tell me when my boys were born that you made a pact with each other when you were 16, that every four years you're going to get together on your birthday? And they both started cracking up and laughing hysterically.
Ruth Whalen Crockett: We regretfully said no.
Lippard: We never told you that. But it's a good idea. And I just recently learned that for the very first time since Ruth and Nora themselves turned 16, they're actually going to be together today.
Nora Whalen: Ruthie will be getting out a plane very shortly to arrive in Minneapolis mid-afternoon, and we will be celebrating our 12th birthday. We're having kind of a blowout party.
Lippard: It's the first time since they were 16 that they are physically together on their actual birthday.
Ruth Whalen Crockett: And I think four years from now, we'll be somewhere, you know, where we'll have our toes in some warm water and sand. Jed has this imagination that we are, you know, on a tropical island on a leap day every year. And I joke that, you know, we could be at an airport hotel in Des Moines and we'd be having a good time together.
Lippard: I don't know what the future holds for my own boys. Sometimes they barely like being in the same room together now. So who knows what will happen when they turn 20 or 24 or 28, you name it. But I am hopeful that they will draw some inspiration from a manufactured story that I came up with in my own head that has at least inspired another set of Leap Day twins.
Nora Whalen: I'm hoping those boys of Jed's will recognize that being a twin and being born on an auspicious day is really something special, and it's worth celebrating.
Siegel: Those were the voices of Nora Whalen, Ruth Whalen Crockett, and Jed Leppard. Thank you to them for sharing a story with me that could only happen on a leap day. And happy birthday to Nora, Ruth, Abe, Owen, and all the Leap Day babies out there. This is GBH News.
For years Jed Lippard shared a story with his twin sons, Owen and Abe, who were born on Leap Day in 2008. It was a tale about another set of Leap Day twins who, 16 years after their birth, made a pact to always drop what they were doing every four years and celebrate their birthday together.
It was a story that meant a lot to Lippard. But it wasn’t true.
So how did a Leap Day twin misunderstanding become a reality?
Lippard grew up as a gay man in Pennsylvania and said he never thought he'd end up in a place and time where he could get married and have kids of his own. But in 2008, he found himself living with his husband in Massachusetts, married and expecting twins through a surrogate.
Their sons ended up coming a month early, born on the unlikeliest of days: Feb. 29, 2008.
In an auspicious coincidence, Lippard, who works as an educator, had a colleague who was also a twin born on Leap Day.
That co-worker and friend, Ruth Whalen Crockett, now lives in Lowell. Her twin sister, Nora Whalen, lives in Minneapolis. Like Lippard, they both work in education.
“Our parents did not know they were having twins until Nora was born,” Ruth Whalen Crockett said.
Lippard said he distinctly remembers talking to Ruth about her Leap Day twin.
“I recall having had a conversation with Ruth not long after my boys were born where she told me that when she and her sister Nora turned 16 — or 4 — that they made a pact with each other that no matter where they are in the world, every four years, on their actual birthday, February 29th, they are going to drop everything and get together and be together in person,” Lippard said.
It became a story he told his sons a lot.
“I tell my kids this all the time, that I have these friends, they made this pact,” Lippard said. “I was sort of impressing upon them this idea for their own connection moving forward.”
When Lippard’s twins were about to turn 8 (or 2, if you only count Leap Days), Lippard happened to run into both Ruth and Nora Whalen again at an education conference.
“And he [Lippard] comes up to us and he thanks us," Ruth Whalen Crockett said. "And he says, I am so glad that the two of you always celebrate your birthday together, because I have told my boys, I've insisted that they spend every leap year together, because that is what the Whalen twins do.”
Ruth and Nora Whalen said they were confused. They wouldn't be together for their birthday.
In fact, they hadn't been together for their birthday since they were 16 years old (or 4, if you only count Leap Days.)
“Jed, we haven't celebrated our birthday together since we were turning 4, like, 16 years old,” Ruth Whalen Crockett said. “And he said, what?”
Lippard said he was shocked. What about the beautiful story of the pact that Ruth had told him about?
Maybe it was the haze of early parenting, or a simple misunderstanding on Lippard’s part.
“I paused,” he said. “I said, didn't you tell me when my boys were born that you made a pact with each other when you were 16, that every four years you're going to get together on your birthday? And they both started cracking up and laughing hysterically.”
They said no, Ruth Whalen Crockett said — “regretfully.”
But the story planted a seed in their minds, they said. And this year, for their 48th birthday (or 12th, for those doing Leap Day math), they’ll celebrate together.
“Ruthie will be getting out a plane very shortly to arrive in Minneapolis mid-afternoon, and we will be celebrating our 12th birthday,” Nora Whalen said. “We're having kind of a blowout party.”
They hope the tradition will stick.
“I think four years from now, we'll be somewhere, you know, where we'll have our toes in some warm water and sand,” Ruth Whalen Crockett said. “Jed has this imagination that we are on a tropical island on a Leap Day every year. And I joke that, you know, we could be at an airport hotel in Des Moines and we'd be having a good time together.”
Lippard said he doesn’t know what the future holds for his own boys, who are now teenagers.
“Who knows what will happen when they turn 20 or 24 or 28, you name it,” he said. “But I am hopeful that they will draw some inspiration from a manufactured story that I came up with in my own head that has at least inspired another set of Leap Day twins.”
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