The Third Generation Smile

I grew up in a sleepy little mining community in Southeastern Idaho. My dad grew up in the same dusty town and as a child I would often be stopped by older folks claiming that I had "my dad's look about me." To most people this would not be significant, in fact most people resemble their parents. However, I am biracial and therefore have many of my mothers Maori features. I was unable to see past these features to see where my dad's genes had made themselves known. Therefore, I would shrug off the comments and carry on my merry little way thinking that they were all wrong and that I looked just like myself. When Liam was about three years old, my dad's relatives started telling me that Liam resembled my dad as a little boy. Again, I kinda just shrugged it off and didn't know what to think since I hadn't really seen pictures of my dad as a young boy. Well folks, I am eating my own words as the proof has been shown to me in the past few weeks. My youngest college-aged sister has been living with my parents this past Summer to earn and save money for her Sophomore year at college. She has been doing a lot of digging around through our grandmothers personal photos and history. Grandma has relished her company and has enjoyed the opportunity to reminisce about the amazing life history that she has had so far. My sister felt selfish that only she was privy to these photos and felt that they needed to be shared with our entire family. So my sissy has been uploading all of these photos to Facebook so that our entire family can enjoy these photos. I have been astounded to see that not only does Liam in reality look very similar to my dad but that I also look like my dad! I have his identical smile, my eyebrows and the shape of my eyes all come from my dad. I love that my dad, myself, and Liam all have the exact same smile. I didn't realize the smile that I love so dearly in my own son is in fact my dad's smile. It makes me so happy to know that my boy Liam has some of his papa Ken's facial features! Not to mention that when I am looking at my face, I am in fact looking at part of my dad's face as well. Somehow, this knowledge that I do in fact look like my dad has made me feel very close to him and grateful that I inherited some of his facial features to be a daily reminder of where I come from. I love you dad and am so glad that I have your "looks about me" as a reminder that I am yours. Just as Liam has "your look about him" to be a reminder that he belongs to both of us.