I See the Ghost of My Mother When I Catch a Glimpse of Myself in the Mirror

Other people have always noticed a resemblance, but I didn’t see it until now

When I was growing up, everyone told me that I looked like my mom. People often called me Becky — her name, not mine. I got so used to it that I didn’t correct them though I really didn’t see the resemblance. She had light-brown hair with a bounce at the bottom, light-blue eyes, and freckles. I had similar features, but my mom looked like a grown woman — I looked like a kid.

I thought my mom was much prettier and I still do. Her eyes were bigger and brighter, her skin tanner, her face thinner, and her smile more sparkly and infectious. She had a bigger chest and much better legs. She looked like Becky. I looked like Rachel.

My mom got sick when she was fifty-one and died when she was fifty-seven. Throughout her illness, her big, blue eyes still sparkled behind her small tortoiseshell glasses, and her light brown thinning hair still looked bouncy even when she wore baseball hats to hide the fact that it was falling out in chunks. Her smile never faded, and she still had those great legs.

At 48, I now finally see the resemblance people have told me about for as long as I can remember. Aging is funny that way. When I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror of my car or a snapshot on a phone, I see my mother. It’s actually a little disarming.