HE LOOKS LIKE MY FATHER AND HE BECAME MY MOTHER

Is this really what happens?

In countless households across America and around the world the stinging, ringing rejoinders of youth still reverberate in our ageing ears.

“Well, I’m not you…I don’t want to be you or even like you…I want to be myself…I am me!!!

Why can’t you get that???”

How much time do you have, little ones? Because there’s a lot to explain here.

Where would you care to begin?

We are our parents. Like it or not, then, now or later…that’s the lay of the land.

It’s not simply that, “it is what it is.”

You see, it is what it was, is and forever will be. Courtesy of genealogy. Science. DNA.

It’s remarkable really. No matter how hard we may try, we will never be able to undo what the gene pool has done. The dye has been cast and the etching is forever in stone. There is no way to get around it.

When a newborn arrives the welcome is punctuated by an array of celebratory and joyous remarks and observations, most notably the ones which refer to the baby’s bouncy good health and pink, fresh-scrubbed sparkling appearance.

“She’s precious!”

“He’s beautiful!”

“She looks just like you!”

“He’s your spitting image!”

“She’s got your nose.”

“He’s got your eyes.”

“Same mouth!!”

It’s uncanny really.

A newborn becomes an infant and an infant becomes a toddler. When my firstborn child — my son — began to walk, he did so exactly as I do.

My daughter, though far more pleasing to the eye than I ever was or am, resembles me physically as much as a woman can physically resemble her father.

And the hits just keep on comin’.

My brother who just had his sixty-eighth birthday was one of those lucky ones blessed with startling good looks — handsomeness — right from the get-go.

He had nothing whatever to do with it.

When they were young and even as they grew older, my parents had it going in the way of being quite pleasant at the very least, to look at.

And they had nothing to do with it either.

The cards are dealt and you play them. Just how you play them is up to you; enhancements, embellishments and certain adjustments can be made or not.

Cosmetics.

Surgeries.

Cosmetic surgeries.

Or nature, as in, “let nature take its course dear.” (I can still hear my mother to this very day).

The bottom line is that the gene cart can never be upset. A good thing or a curse from hell. Something in between or nothing at all.

As with life in general, it’s all a matter of how you look at it, how you see it and just what you see.

So as my brother approaches septuagenarian status his appearance is the mirror image of my father’s. Looks and walks exactly as Dad did. When he can walk normally.

And herein lies the rub. He hasn’t been walking normally for a long time. Seemingly an eternity, most especially for him I would suppose.

As my mother aged her body was riddled with rheumatoid arthritis. She had other physical problems as well and the combination of medical maladies conspired to eat away at her ability to remain ambulatory.

When she could barely walk at all, she did so anyway — stooped over — with supreme effort and admirable tenacity. And believe me when I confide, it wasn’t pretty. Neither for her nor for us watching.

My brother’s situation is starting to look a lot like my mother’s was. Not exactly the same, but strikingly similar.

Ahh, life my friends. We can control only so much. I imagine that the sooner this message is received and understood, the better.

As for me, I went to the doctor yesterday and I shrunk another inch.

But not to worry.

I got a good report, I feel pretty well and I’ve been told by more than a few that I look a little like George Clooney.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in January 2018.]