On Family Resemblence

When I was younger I used to think I looked exactly like my father. I had lighter hair and skin like him and my relatives on his side of the family. I would look at the two of my three brothers who also showed many of the same features and find it odd that my third brother resembled my mother and her family more.

I’ve always found it interesting how genes and DNA mix together to make a person and I’m constantly looking at people’s children to see who they look most like – mom or dad. And of course I’ve found it particularly intriguing in my own family.

A few years ago a picture taken of my mother and me together produced quite the revelation. I looked back and forth at our faces over and over and realized that I do look like her. Quite a bit actually. It was just hard for me to see for years under my blonder hair and less olive-toned skin.

In the second picture I included in yesterday’s post I have a look on my face that I have seen on my mother’s visage a million times. It’s not a bad look or a good look, it’s just a “look.” One that I recognize from childhood and beyond. But that was the first time I’d ever seen it in the mirror.

Of course it’s not just the look on my face, it’s also some of my mannerisms and things I say or do in my daily life. I ‘see’ more of her in me these days and as the years pass and as I raise my own children.

I bring this up because of course I find myself wondering who my baby girl will look and act like. Will she finally be the one to get my same brown eyes? Will she also have blond hair? Will she have Tim’s long eyelashes like the boys do? Or perhaps she’ll have my nose, which I think must’ve come from my grandfather on my dad’s side.

Will she walk like me or play with her hair like her father does?

Who really knows? I mean maybe she’ll spend many years of her life thinking she looks like her father and then one day she will see that there’s a lot of her mother in her.

And years from now she’ll hear herself repeat phrases such as “many moons ago” and “’til he cows come home.” Only time and photographs will tell.