Becoming My Mother

Way back when the world was young and my sister and I rode pterodactyls to school, I remember the two of us looking at a picture of our mother, who must have been the frightful age of 40 or so at the time the picture was taken, and laughing as we pointed out the frumpy (to us) dress, the antiquated hairdo, and my poor mother’s sagging body parts. In our arrogance, we assured ourselves and each other that no way, never for all eternity would we ever look like our mother.

Of course, as usual the joke is on me. I pulled out a box of pictures the other day and that very same picture stared up at me with what I swear was a smirk (yes, pictures can mock you, trust me on this). I figure I am at least 20 years older now than my mother was when someone snapped that not-terribly-flattering picture. Yep, the dress still looks frumpy to me, the hairdo definitely was not very appealing, and sure enough, the body parts did indeed droop. However, the face staring back at me looked younger than I remembered, and as I looked closely at the picture, I realized I definitely have become my mother, at least in looks, a fact my sister recently pointed out to me when she told me that I was the spitting image of our mother. “You look just like her,” she said one night.

I thought about my own older-looking body, my own less-than-stylish clothing, and my hair that I keep permed so I don’t have to do anything more with it than run a comb through it once or twice a day. Hmm, what did I find so hilarious about that picture when I was young and stupid? Remembering with chagrin the way my sister and I chortled at that picture when we were silly and naive, the pomposity we felt when we assured ourselves that we would NEVER look like that, that we would age gracefully and almost imperceptibly, made me laugh ruefully.

Of course, I am my mother, in a lot more ways than in looks. The lessons she taught, the ethics she instilled in us and the way she did tasks have ingrained themselves into my core. I can still hear her admonishing me when I do something she would find wasteful.

I also have aged no more gracefully that she did, in fact, probably not as well, as even up to the day she died at 90 years of age she kept herself looking nice. She wore well-tailored nice clothes, far nicer than I even own, much less wear.

We do become our parents in many more ways than we like to imagine. It’s too late now to apologize to my mother for my youthful arrogance, but I suspect she would forgive me in an instant.