When I was growing up, I never looked anything like my father. Everywhere I went, everyone would say, “you look just like your mother”. To which I – thinking I was clever – would respond, “no, she looks just like me.”
I remember back in sixth grade science class when we were studying genetics and DNA, we were supposed to make a chart showing what features we got from each of our parents. I had my mother’s blond hair and blues eyes, and both of my parents were tall, but I still needed to list something I got just from my father. When I asked my father, a physician, what physical characteristic I had inherited from him – and only him – his scientific response was my maleness. You can only imagine the look on my teacher’s face when I told the entire class of twelve year olds what feature my father had bestowed on me. Of course, I was insightful enough to have qualified my answer as having come from a medical professional.
A few decades later it really didn’t affect me at all when my son was born with a startling resemblance to his mother’s family, save for his cleft chin. He has dark, chocolate eyes, curly hair, and lush lips. I don’t need my child to look like me, and to be honest, he is probably better off looking like his mother. But, no matter how much I observe both his physical characteristics and his gestures, I simply do not see myself in him.
Nevertheless, when I look at myself in the mirror, and I can’t pinpoint exactly what is that I see, I always see him in my reflection, staring back at me.
Grave Error 