Why Does My Mother Hang Out in My Mirrors?

When my sister and I were little, everyone agreed that I looked more like my father and she looked more like my mother. That was a little problematic for my immature ego because my father had left when I was just 3 and my sister hadn't yet been born.

While it was easy enough to prove my very strong resemblance to my father's sister by holding her picture next to my face, I always felt a little diminished. My mother did not even try to hold back her disdain for our absent father, and she frequently launched into a litany of reasons that he was a no-good son-of-a-bitch. And because he was a no-good son-of-a-bitch, he was banned forever from seeing his two daughters, one of whom he'd hardly even met. And so it was. After the age of 4, I saw my father three times: on a summer vacation at his parent's summer home in Idewilde, Michigan; when he just showed up one day in front of the house; and, when he lay dead in his casket.

I didn't know what a son-of-a-bitch was, but I knew I preferred NOT to look like one if it was going to create that level of distress for my mother. I envied my little sister, because she looked like our mother, who clearly did not think SHE was any kind of son or daughter of a bitch! She thought she was exactly what was needed for a model mother and sympathetic victim. But it was true that although my sister and I looked like twins at some points during our development, she bore no resemblance whatsoever to our ex-communicated daddy. That bothered me.

That is, until I began to view my mother in a way that actually made me glad I didn't look as much like her. That happened over many years, but by the time I went off to college, I was determined not to be anything like her.

Mama is what one would call a difficult personality. Talented, smart, well-read, industrious, creative and beautiful -- all could and would be said about her. She was 5'8" tall, willowy and shapely, a real beauty. Mean, judgmental, opinionated, self-involved, arrogant and misandristic -- all could and would be said about her. She still lives by herself, despite being crippled severely by scoliosis and multiple sclerosis, and she has been known to lie about injuries she has suffered from falls, in order to avoid her daughters swooping in and taking over her life.

Somewhere around the age of 40, I began to notice subtle changes in my facial features; changes that caused people to look at me twice if they hadn't seen me in a few years. "I don't remember you looking so much like your mother," was a common remark. Most observers said it as if it were a compliment -- as I said, she was a beauty. But I heard it as an indictment and would flinch in psychic pain. I suppose I feared that if I looked more like her, I might begin to think and behave like her, and that I could not have.
Today, whenever I pass a reflective glass of any kind she is right there, hanging out in the glass. After 25 more years of morphing, I still have to remember that I have become the spitting image of my mother. I was never as tall, but spinal fractures caused by osteopoenia have reduced my height to the same 5'4" that my mother stands today. The shape of my head could be interposed on a picture of her and go undetected. We sound exactly alike on the telephone, which has been true for 50 years. Same naso-labial folds -- hers more advanced, of course -- same nose, same hooded eyes with clouds in the irises, caused by cholesterol.

Despite this apparent physical cloning, I at least delude myself into believing that I have inherited more of her positive traits than her negative ones. She and my sister accuse me of being excessively kind. (Huh? That's a problem?) I don't hate men, that’s for sure! I am not jealous of anyone, because I like who I am, without exception. Oh, I have some of the arrogance and I am never without an opinion about anything. But we are two very different people.
Isn't it funny how things turn out sometimes?