Considering one thing and another, I have always been sure I could not possibly be related to the people who raised me. I suspect everyone, especially as a child, is sure they are a misplaced orphan. Sadly, there was always one problem from which I could never escape.
I look just like them. Both of them. They didn’t look alike, so how could this be?
Apparently, you change as you age. So you can look exactly like dad when you’re three, but exactly like mom when you’re sixty. Periodically, depending on how the genetic package rolls, you can resemble one or the other — or both — at any given point in time.
I used to look like my father, but I got older. Now, look like my mother.
I wonder if I’ll ever look like me? Whatever that means.
I know nothing about what brought me into the world any more than I know what will take me out. Probably, that’s just as well. I think I lack curiosity about my fate which others apparently have a strong need to know. I never felt any serious desire to research my ancestry or get my DNA checked. When I did it, it was a fun birthday present for Garry and I.
What was, is. What will be, will occur. I’m not in charge and never was. I am okay enjoying as much of the now as I can while I’m still part of it.
Yet, every now and then, I wonder if it’s possible I was actually put here by a transiting starcraft. An intergalactic seed dropped from the sky that somehow, wound up in this world. In this peculiar place. A bit of pollen falling from a drifting craft on its way to somewhere in an infinite beyond.
It could be true.
Categories: Fiction, Garry Armstrong, Humor, Photography, story
When I look at my son, he’s so obviously his father’s child that I used to be a bit pee’d off – I even used to say if I hadn’t given actual birth to him I’d never know that I was involved in his creation…. He has however one feature from me and that’s his slightly crooked (? – uneven) smile – I have that too. It’s just a small ID matter but it’s that…
LikeLike
There are a couple of newer movies “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Guardians…II”. Both deal with your thoughts on being a ‘star child’ and what that might mean. Those films are silly fun with a bit of adventure thrown in and some wickedly good (although to me personally, a bit depressing) 70s and late 60s music for the sound track. I think you look just like YOU, for all that’s worth. Because although we may resemble our parents – I’ve always looked like my mother’s people and now I look like my mother, which is sort of horrifying – we are a unique blend and mixture of those two people and the genetic material they contributed to making their baby, which is US.
Also we will never know this side of heaven and maybe not over there; what we look like, really. All we can see are images in mirrors or photos, which are distorted.
Whatever you might think you look like…your mom or your dad – I think you look like the lady you are. And that’s beautiful.
LikeLike
Thank you. But even my friends think I look remarkably like my mother. What’s equally funny is how Garry was always a duplicate of his mother until recently, he started to look VERY much like his father — minus about 8 inches of height.
LikeLike
I sometimes wonder, what is my Grandmother doing in my mirror? I like the idea of being stardust or pollen 🤧
LikeLike
Well, in theory, we are ALL stardust. It’s a pleasant thought!
LikeLike
I’ve thought that for years. Glad to hear it come from someone else. Of course there’s Joni Mitchell’s We Are Stardust
LikeLike
You come up with the most interesting thoughts. We are a blend of many of our ancestors so I imagine we go through periods in our lives when we take after a fair number of different family members.
Leslie
LikeLike
I have pictures of Owen as a toddler that are literally identical to similar ones of his father at the same age. Then, sometimes in his early 20s, he stopped looking like Jeff and began to look like me. Kaitie hasn’t formed her face yet. She’s still a little of this, a little of that. But she has my coloring.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fun to look at old photos and see who’s taking on whose characteristics….
LikeLike
I was noticing in a recent photo you posted how much Owen was like you and wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before, the ones you have shared of him as a child he doesn’t particularly.
If you really are a Starchild it might be time to phone home. 🙂
LikeLike
I’ve been thinking of putting an intersteller beeper on my lawn so they’ll know to come and get us!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Actually, you do look a lot like your mom.., and I think she’s pretty cute from pictures and what I remember from back when.
LikeLike
It’s just funny because I looked like my father until one day, I REALLY looked like my mother. But she was taller. I would like to be taller. I could hardly BE shorter.
LikeLike
Well your looks have given away the secret. So do mine. While I looked more like my father when younger, as I age I look more and more like my mother, at least the pictures I saw of her.
LikeLike
It’s weird. My son looked exactly like his father when he was a kid and now he looks like me. My granddaughter looks like me, but who knows where she will be in 10 years?
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is weird, if you see how we change yet remain they same. Sisters often start by looking totally different and yet as they cross forty, they resemble each other a lot.
LikeLike
When I finally read about how are head shape changes with time, it started to make more sense. They pointed out that most babies look basically the same, but then they change and they look like a parent or a grandparent, but five years later, they look like some other member of the family … and we keep changing, even when we get quite old.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We do, and some parts of our faces even keep on growing like the nose!
LikeLike