Recently a ten year picture challenge has been going around Facebook.  One is supposed to post a pic of how they looked a decade ago compared with today.  I just happened to take this picture of my little one recently and then a few days later I came across this old picture of my mother, taken by my father.  There are thirty years and two generations separating these two but I think the resemblance is striking.  My mother had redder hair but my daughter has her fair complexion.  I see brown eyes in both; my child’s being darker because she has her father’s deep, chocolate eyes.  The cheeks, pert nose, and cupid’s bow lips are all my mother’s.  Moreover, she has my mother’s firecracker yet sweet personality.  She says the EXACT SAME things my mother said, and in the same way.  While some may not find this surprising, my mother passed right after her third birthday.  I was extremely close with both of my parents for all of my life until the day they died.  I was 28 when my father passed and I took care of my mother until she passed at the age of 81.  To have lost one’s parents and truly see them in your child is perhaps the greatest gift imaginable.  From the sweep of her long, jet black eyelashes identical to my father’s, to the same obsession with rolls my mother had, she is absolutely their grandchild.  I know my husband’s side is there, too but since they are still living she receives the benefit of knowing them.  I can only provide glimpses of what my beloved parents were like through memories, stories, and pictures.  I cannot presume to suppose what adopted children and orphans may feel; I can only express what a deep sense of genetic familial connection I have always had.  I want that for my daughter.  Every time I see or hear my folks inexplicably in my child my heart is both elated and saddened.  Of course I am elated to know they live on and I am saddened because they no longer walk this earth.  The American educator and wife of the 37th President of the United States, Pat Nixon, once said, ”All lives have triumphs and tragedies, laughter and tears, and mine has been no different.  What really matters is whether, after all of that, you remain strong and a comfort to your loved ones.  I have tried to meet that test.”  I hope I am remaining strong and a comfort as well … for my mother’s namesake.