DAVENPORT, Iowa — It should have been double the celebration.
But graduation day for twin sisters Brooke and Brianna Hart, who both just finished their nursing degrees at St. Ambrose University, felt half-hearted.
"When I woke up that morning, it didn’t feel like I was graduating, or it felt real for me," Brianna said.
"I couldn’t stop crying," said Brooke. "It felt like, I was like mourning something I never got. But at the same time, I knew what I had accomplished and this pandemic couldn’t take that away."
Graduation was a virtual celebration, and so was their pinning ceremony, an occasion honoring nursing students' hard work.
"Usually the faculty would pin us," Brianna said, "But since the COVID situation, they asked each and everyone of us to pick someone special."
The twins, naturally, picked each other for the privilege.
"We decided to pin each other," Brooke said, "just because we went through it together, we know each other and know what we went through."
As for their future, patients at Genesis might think they are seeing double.
Both sisters applied and were accepted on the hospital's orthopedics floor. They know there is a possibility they might come into contact with COVID-19 patients as the ortho floor serves as overflow in case of a surge in coronavirus patients.
"If we were to get a second wave of anything with this COVID, we could potentially have to have COVID patients," Brianna said.
When it come to taking on the future, no matter how scary, the twins are of one mind:
"It’s a scary thing, but I wouldn’t choose anything else," Brooke said.
"I wouldn’t chose anything different either," Brianna echoed.
Advice from "seniors" for graduating "seniors"
