Family Resemblances Redux

My mother, about age 12

I hadn’t seen this picture of my mother until I found it in an old picture album when I was preparing a slide show of her life for her funeral last summer. I love the youth and innocence she depicts from a time long before she was my mother.

Until I saw this picture, I never thought my daughter looked much like my mother. At 5’9” my daughter is far taller than either I or my mother could ever claim. (There are several stories I could write about our height differences.) My daughter has curly hair, while my mother and I never had curls except through mechanical or chemical means.

My daughter and my mother. At age 9, my daughter was almost as tall as my mother and me.

The one thing my daughter inherited from my mother’s side of the family was nice straight teeth (not visible in the picture above of my mother). Although many of their features are different, I’ve always thought my daughter had my mother’s smile. A lovely smile. Unfortunately, I got my dad’s too-tight teeth, though I never had braces, because the orthodontist said I had “a good bite.”

All three of us have worn glasses, and we all began needing them in childhood. My mother was far-sighted and started wearing glasses at age six. My daughter and I are both near-sighted and we each began wearing glasses when we were eight.

My daugther, age 10, in a picture that reminds me of the large picture above of my mother.

But my daughter switched to contacts at age thirteen—when I gave her the choice of contacts or piercing her ears. She chose the contacts, and only pierced her ears this year . . . to celebrate her 30th birthday. I think one of the factors in her decision to get her ears pierced at long last was that she inherited a pair of diamond earrings from my mother. My mother’s earrings are not for pierced ears, but my daughter decided the screw-on kind hurt every time you wear them and piercing only hurts for a couple of weeks.

Due to the fashions in glasses, my daughter in the years she wore glasses did resemble my mother. The round lenses and cheeks made them look alike, at least for a bit.

What old pictures have made you see family resemblances you never noticed before?