A team of 30 specialists at Nationwide Children’s hospital in Ohio have successfully separated Acen and Apio Akello, 11-month-old twins who were conjoined at the hip and spine.

It was a complex procedure that lasted 16 hours, requiring the delicate separation of the Ugandan girls’ spines, muscles and nerves, according to a Nationwide Children’s press release. It’s unclear how much longer the girls will need to stay at the hospital, but doctors say they’re healthy and that their lives are about to change forever.

“We have the potential at Nationwide Children’s to take two patients who would never have been able to have a normal life as they were before and make them into two separate individuals who, I expect, will have healthy and normal lives,” said Dr. Gail Besner, chief of Pediatric Surgery at the hospital.. (1)

Separated from our creator.

Separated from our mother.

Separated from our parents.

Separated from the universe. Still looking our place in it.

Parts of the cosmos. With the illusion of difference.

Thrown in the cosmos. And left alone.

Crying.

For the simplest of reasons imaginable…