When Did That Happen?

It definitely took me by surprise.

I have brown hair and brown eyes.  When I was little, I was always told that I resembled my father.  Some people even told me that I looked like his mother.  No one said that I looked like my mother, who had blonde hair and blue eyes.

I also looked like my sister, who had the same brown hair and brown eyes.  And my half-sister, from the same father — same brown hair and brown eyes.

For a while I even looked like my stepsister (yup, brown hair and brown eyes), but that's a whole different story.

Growing up, the story was the same.  There was no question that I took after my father.  Tall, skinny and leggy, brown hair and brown eyes (full of it up to there, as my father often told me, even when I pointed out that meant he was also).

Now, when I was with my mother, especially as I got older, people could tell that we were related, although they often asked if we were sisters.  Considering that there was a 21-year age difference, I couldn't figure out if they thought my mother looked that much younger or if I looked that much older.  But even though they said we looked related, they didn't say we looked like each other.  Along with having blonde hair and blue eyes, my mother was short and, um, "chubby" (or zaftig, in Yiddish).  Very different from what I looked like.

And then it happened.

I had started working a regular full-time office job, which meant that I was sitting down most of the day instead of running around.  I now had a "sedentary lifestyle."  And that meant that I wasn't quite so skinny anymore.  I started putting on a little weight.

I looked in the mirror one day and was stunned.

I was looking at my mother's face.

When did that happen?

I found it interesting that when I gained weight, my face no longer looked like my father's but instead looked like my mother's.  Logically, that means I had aspects of both present to begin with, but the added weight must have emphasized those that resembled my mother more.

And to think, when my mother saw me after I had put on the weight, she complained!

She's been gone for almost 30 years now, but happy Mother's Day, Mommy.