When I updated the post about meeting my father the other day, even then I wasn’t done with my thought process on how to describe it so it was Pictionary to those reading. It isn’t that I really need to provide that but more that I want to. It helps my brain stay creative.
It was like meeting my baby for the first time. When you are pregnant, you have this idea in your head about what the baby will look like. You think about that human being inside you and you compare it to the two people who created it. “Will it have my hair? I wonder what color the eyes will be, and the laugh? Will it be like mine? What will it be like to hug it? Will the baby even like me?” As a mother, all of these thoughts, as silly as they all may seem, rush through you and you ponder on them for quite some time. These were similar thoughts that I have had for 26 years, only I knew what he looked like. My mom has this fire proof box that she kept three pictures of my father (from the time they were married) and his driver license (old) so that my brother and I would always know what he looked like. Because I was still young enough that my memory has left me, I never really knew what he truly looked like in my mind. So back to the questions: “Will my hair be like his? Since I look just like my mom, will I have anything that looks like him? How tall is he? What kind of hugs does he give? Will he even like me? I wonder what his voice sounds like. Is it a low voice, a high voice? What does he laugh like? Does he have a beard?” I remember telling Steven, my mom, and my aunt that it was like I have sat next to my dad and heard him talk, laugh, have the same smile, hair, and habits for 28 years. My brother is him and he is my brother. I couldn’t contain myself in speech. I sobbed the second I realized that everything I had been missing in my life was walking next to me the whole time. When I talked to him on the phone, it was like talking to my brother, I even checked to see if I had dialed the wrong number. It wasn’t any different the day I got to touch him. His whiskers graze the top of my cheek bone just under my eye, the same way my brothers do when we hug. He has the same wrinkle in his top lip and the corners of his mouth don’t curve up like mine do but by the squint of his eyes, you can tell he is smiling. His shoulders move up and down just like Zack’s when he is truly laughing. His hair is two shades darker than mine but coarse and wavy, it peeks out like a frow under his truck stop hat just like it did in the pictures my mom kept. The wait was over and after what seemed like an eternity, giving birth to my daughter brought everything to reality. I got to see her nose, the way her mouth held close like mine and the way that she reached for me. I finally got to see what I had created with the help of another human being. We got to see who she looked like more and what features she received from whom. Same as the wait was over for me. I got to see how much I was or wasn’t like my dad. He got to see the person he helped make grown up to be a young (I am not 30 yet) woman and how I looked or didn’t look like him. I have his shoulders, I stand like him, and to be honest I think in temperament, I am more like he is that my brother. (They won’t admit it but my brother and my mom act just alike) I am my father in more ways than I even imagined. It is hard to pass judgment when something is missing in your life to say that you are strictly like the parent you are raised by but in this case, I see myself in my father more and more every day. I also see how much my brother is like him. If there was a perfect mix of two children between their parents, it is my brother and me. I left him from the meet and greet completely in awe and fascinated that I was so close, yet so far away from him all of these years. When you birth a child, you stare at them in complete awe that they were so close inside of you, yet so far away because you could not see them, speak to them, and realistically touch them to know what you have been missing. The anticipation is almost too much to bare and then when that moment finally arrives, your life is complete. All the wonder, all the thoughts and questions are no longer. The only questions left to remain is what does the future hold?
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