Five Minutes That Split Lifetimes

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Christopher Capozziello was born five minutes before his fraternal twin brother, Nick. While other twins might jokingly pull rank on each other, in the Capozziellos’ case those five minutes altered the courses of their lives.

Nick wasn’t breathing when he was born and developed cerebral palsy. While Christopher, who goes by Chris, hit all of his developmental milestones on time, Nick lagged. By the age of three, their differences were clear.

“Everything is slow for Nick,” Chris said. “It’s like somebody took time and just turned this wheel that made everything sort of slower for him. Slower in speech, slower in comprehension, slower in movement. He understands enough about the world to know what he’s missing.”

Christopher Capozziello Nick Capozziello’s “brain pacemaker” is visible in his chest as he suffers a cramp.

Chris doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t aware of the differences between them, but as a child, he didn’t find it strange or all that difficult. It was the only world he knew. After all, they shared so much (including a bedroom for 26 years â€" Chris got the top bunk).

But as Chris got older, he started to notice that his family was different from others. When the twins were outside playing ball with friends, Nick would cramp up and become rigid like a statue. Chris and his friends would have to carry him into the house. Someone would grab Nick’s arms while Chris took his legs, and they would haul him upstairs and put him in bed.

Christopher Capozziello Nick in bed with a bad cramp.

Nick’s seizures became worse as he got older. Sometimes they lasted for minutes. Sometimes the cramps lingered for days.

Chris, a freelance photographer who often works for The New York Times, has been documenting his brother for 13 years. He has compiled these photos â€" along with raw, honest diary entries â€" into a book, “The Distance Between Us,” that is scheduled to be published this fall by Edition Lammerhuber. To pay for the printing costs, he is raising money through Kickstarter.

The book is a loving but unromantic look at Nick’s life and the way his struggles have affected Chris; their sister, Deana; and their parents, Ron and Karen. It portrays Nick as a person who has a disability that affects how he lives, but doesn’t define who he is.

Rick Gershon Chris and Nick in the Badlands on a road trip.

Chris sees his brother as friendly, outgoing, questioning and very funny.

“I could bring him with me anywhere, anywhere, and he would talk to people and get people to open up, probably in different ways than I can,” he said. “He is somebody who has a beautiful sense of humor, and people react to that. Nick is someone who is actually happy, which is something that I struggle with. But he’s happy.”

Last week at the dinner table, Nick told Chris and their parents that, despite the challenges, he doesn’t wish he had grown up without cerebral palsy. He realizes that without the condition, he would be a different person.

But if you asked Nick on the wrong day, Chris said, you might get a different answer.

“He might say, ‘I know I might be a different person, but I want things to be different. I want to have a job, I want to be married, I want to have a girlfriend. I want to have children someday.’ ”

Christopher Capozziello Nick has a cigarette at home.

Chris worries whether Nick will be O.K. if those things don’t happen. Yet, at 33, Chris is unattached and doesn’t have children. When he was in relationships in the past, he sometimes felt guilty.

Guilt is a recurring theme for Chris. He wonders why he wasn’t the one born disabled. And he admits that, even if there were an answer, he’s not sure either of them could handle it.

“I feel this guilt that this isn’t fair for Nick,” he said. “I don’t know what that’s supposed to even mean, but it makes sense in my head, because he’s the one who doesn’t get to have these things and I get to more easily experience them.”

Still, it’s clear Chris loves Nick’s company, and they hang out often. Last year they drove across the United States. The book includes photographs and written accounts of that adventure by each of them.

It also features photos of a series of surgeries, and a difficult recovery, that Nick underwent to alleviate his cramps.

Chris says he wishes that he could take the burden from Nick, do “an eternal swap” and let Nick live the rest of his life free of it.

But he can’t.

While Chris wonders who Nick would be without his disabilities, he is equally curious about what kind of person he would be if Nick had been born differently. He pondered that at one point during their road trip.

“I look over at him, reclined in the passenger seat, having slept off a cramp,” Chris wrote. “He looks peaceful, strong even. It’s like he’s some different version of me, I think. Then I wonder if my brother’s suffering, in the end, has taught me how to live.”

Christopher Capozziello Chris, right, in Las Vegas with Nick.

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