Parents: The Looking Glass

Our parents are our past, present and future. We grow with them, and see ourselves reflected back in them. Our multicoloured helices are dashed with our parents’ features and habits from birth. I see my smile in my father’s cheeks, my glint in my mother’s eyes. My french-ness from her delicate wrists and my american-ness from his stride. I am a new puzzle, with their outlines as my shape and their colors as my person.

In the present, their character reflects back to me in waves; in their reactions, their impatience and mimics, I see myself. When one of their traits irritates me, I feel a twang in my neck, pushing me to look at that exact bad habit nestled within me. I replicate their wrongs and rights, guided by DNA disguised as free will.

Whose fault is it that I get snappy when I have low blood sugar? To whom do I owe my creative whims and distracted air? While we are our own persons, when we look in the looking glass, our parents’ faces reflect back to us.

Some may hate it, others may find comfort in this exact assemblage. They raised us in their environment, as their parents had and theirs before. They were also children, and through our birth they become children once again.

We learn of our past from them. “There’s no way that I used to put icing on snow.” or “Did I really love that leopard jacket that much?”. Who were my friends back then? What were my silly expressions and habits? Which vegetables did I used to throw at the wall, that I now use in every dish? Our parents recount these anecdotes with loving nostalgia, and through that looking glass we see glimpses of memories that we lived, but only they hold.

We can only know ourselves as a child through others, and through finger paints left pressed into paper. Too young to define our environment, we were defined by it, and by those that surrounded us. So, we dreamed ardently of owning it, through little doll houses we created elaborate schemes of societies, parodies of divine law of which we saw only glimpses. We lived fully, colorfully, though still blind.

As we start to walk through life, its stages unfold with fantastic new-ness to our eager eyes. We are still afraid, and try to step in the path laid out by our parents. We test our shoes and grimace at the trodden mud, skipping around and over to other, seemingly greener trails, or cutting through long grasses with the thirst of freedom. Then, we stumble into a pond, and there we are, there are our parents smiling in the still water.

The puzzle of our person starts to become clearer. With some disdain we see their traits etched into ourselves, but with some satisfaction we see lots and lots of blank pieces. These become shaped through friends and through our own creation as we continue on to a world that is changed. My parents’ youth fascinates me, and in my adventures I see the ghost of their own experiences, like a protection amulet. Escapades to foreign countries, getting lost in the tropics and drunk on the freshness of the world.

We start to understand them, we grow old with them. In their health we see our future, we take notes and try to replicate what works, and become convinced that we will do better than them. We never do, or if so we become blind to another critical wound that keeps festering while we frantically treat the other side.

I must avoid that cancer, my grandmother’s secret to a long life was one glass of sherry a day, I should play chess to keep my mind sharp, I should strengthen my friendships to be happy, I have to get promoted in my career…

Our puzzle pieces seem to become lose, and looking into the future we falter. Death starts to appear, closer, tangible and frequent. And while we’re busy running alongside it, we seek the looking glass to find this obscure “secret of life”.

Then, before we know it, we’re looking right at ourselves.