The morning was memorable only for being unremarkable. I was in my usual early morning fog, having so far only consumed half of my first can of Diet Coke, my drink of choice in the morning. I was shaving with the speed and efficiency that comes from having performed the same task on a daily basis for almost 40 years, and I was not even looking in the mirror because you get to a certain point in your life and you think, “Why bother?”
As I was shaving, mind blank, I absently checked my progress in the mirror and startled, nicked myself with the razor. I leaned forward to get a better look and, impossibly, my father was staring right back at me, bleeding slightly from a small razor cut on his lip.
I put down my razor and put on my eyeglasses; I don’t wear my glasses when I shave because if you combine my early morning puffiness with the harsh bathroom lighting, the last thing I want is to see myself too clearly. My father was still looking at me, only now he was wearing my eyeglasses. Disturbed, I finished shaving and got ready to jump into the shower where, thankfully, there are no mirrors. Before I did, I impulsively waved good-bye to my father, and of course he waved back.
That afternoon I shared the story of my morning visitation with my friend Kate who sighed and told me that just yesterday she had told her 17 year-old daughter, “I hope one day you have a daughter just like you.” It was only 3 in the afternoon but Kate immediately mixed herself a martini because she vividly remembered her mother saying the same thing to her. “I’ve turned into my mother,” she said.
“Well I’m nothing like my dad,” I told her. “I’m six inches taller and 50 pounds heavier.” I added that our personalities are light years apart: Dad was a sunny optimist from the “Everything will be OK” school, not an obsessive-compulsive worrier like me. And Dad had a level of self esteem that I can only dream of. He called his doctor by the first name, and he was not intimidated by service people or IRS agents. I told Kate that once in a fancy restaurant Dad asked the waiter to turn up the lights and turn down the music. At the time, as a teenager I was embarrassed to death. “I could never do that,” I said.
“We all turn into our parents,” said Kate insistently.
But perhaps she was right. My friend Sue said that one day she looked in the mirror and was so startled to find that she had morphed into her mother that she dyed her hair the next day. My friend Bill asked his 15 year old son “How can you listen to that rubbish?” and had a minor crisis because when his dad would ask him the same question he had resolved that when he had kids he would never make editorial comments on their music selections.
Several nights later my partner and I had dinner at a little Italian place and I asked if he ever saw his dad when he looked in the mirror, knowing what his answer would be. “All the time,” he told me. This made perfect sense because the resemblance between my partner and his dad is uncanny. In fact, the first time I met his dad it was like getting a preview of what my partner would look like at age 70. In addition their personalities and mannerisms are very similar.
“But I don’t look OR act like my dad,” I said; although he’s been dead for almost 40 years I was certain of that. “That’s why I was so startled to see him looking at me in the mirror,” I explained.
As we were discussing this the waiter came over. “Are you ready to order?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I can’t even see the menu,” I told him absently. “Why don’t you turn the lights on in here?”
