Wearing My Mom Genes
As I get older it amazes me how much I am looking like my mom at this age. I grew up looking much more like my dad so I still get a shock when I walk past a mirror and get a glimpse of “mom” in it. I’ve begun to resemble her not only in looks but often in the way I find myself using her expressions ( Oh, for crying out in the bucket!… What in the Sam Hill!… My stars and garters!… etc.)
I was blessed to have grown up in a much simpler, less scary world than my children. We played records and used rotary dial phones. We watched (very little) black and white TV and witnessed the first moon landing in amazement. I took for granted a lot of freedoms that they never experienced such as riding bikes alone all across town with no helmet and no fear of danger. We never had a car with seat-belts for years. We walked, played, explored, wandered to our hearts content and as long as we showed up at home for meals we were okay. ( Other than the time when I was four and two of my brother were supposed to walk me to the library and instead let me wander off. I was lost for hours and the police were called.) My children luckily grew up with several acres of land of our own to play on, but other than that, they were supervised always everywhere else. The pervasive evil of society had already encroached upon our lives in the form of the abduction and murder of two young girls only a few miles away from our home. Drug awareness and stranger abduction classes were taught in elementary school. The internet arose as a wonderful form of bringing the world into your home… and the potential of pedophiles disguised as kids, luring children out of it.
I lost my mom and my dad in 1999 and a day does not go by that I do not think of them. I still miss them terribly. I am thankful, however, that they did not live to see some of the worst ways our lives have been changed. They didn’t get to live through the turn of the new century as I had hoped, but they never had to experience the horror of 911 and the life altering results of that unprovoked attack on US soil. They were also spared the sorrow of losing my brother at the age of fifty-seven due to an undiagnosed heart condition. I don’t think they could have stood that.
But, as I stand here, wearing my mom’s face and unfortunately, her overweight body ( sorry, Mom) I realize that my life is not only my own but a legacy of my parents that I will pass down to my children and they to theirs. So I proudly wear my Mom genes and treasure the memories.
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