My sis-in-law, Gwen of Gibbon, came across a photo she shared with me.\u00a0 It was from about 40 years ago.\u00a0 Pam and I were dating or just married.\u00a0 My father Sylvester is in it.\u00a0 He was then about the age I am now.\u00a0 Gwen pointed out, and I couldn\u2019t deny, there were\/are strong similarities between us.\u00a0 I admit doing a double take when I saw it.<\/p>\n
I never really thought of me looking like my dad.\u00a0 He was old; I was young.\u00a0 Sylvester was 48 when I came along.\u00a0 I never knew him as anybody but an old guy.\u00a0 Lo and behold, now I\u2019m an old guy.\u00a0 Pictures don\u2019t lie, right?<\/p>\n
I am not alone in noting this phenomenon.\u00a0 Among friends I\u2019ve had since boyhood, we joke about turning into our parents.\u00a0 As far as we knew, our parents were only young in black and white wedding pictures that hung in hallways.\u00a0 Now we look around, and I\u2019ll be if Mike Schmid doesn\u2019t look like Don and John Schwartz doesn\u2019t look like Jim.\u00a0 I guess that\u2019s the way genetics works.\u00a0 But like a lot of things we know in our head, they surprise us when they happen.<\/p>\n
When I write, I try to think of things a reader and I have in common.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a conversation where you build off things you share.\u00a0 This time it\u2019s easy.\u00a0 Each of us, all of us, have a mother and a father.<\/p>\n
From there, differences grow.\u00a0 You may have grown up like me with one set of parents in one house.\u00a0 Or you might have had stepparents through death or divorce.\u00a0 Or you might be adopted and may or may not know your biological parents.<\/p>\n
There can be a distinction made between the mother and father who gave you your genes and the mother and father who raised you.\u00a0 Most of us give large credit to the people who changed your diaper, taught you how to bike, and sat through your school conferences when handing out the title of Mom and Dad.<\/p>\n
In the competition for saddest things, high on that list has to be a battle for parental rights.\u00a0 To think that care and love and affection for a child would be something to be fought over in a court is terribly grim.\u00a0 But it happens.\u00a0 It is a sign this is a broken world.\u00a0 It has always been such; it is all our obligation to make it less broken.<\/p>\n
As we totter between Mother\u2019s Day and Father\u2019s Day, it\u2019s a good time to think of what our parents have given to us.\u00a0 It certainly is the way we look, but there is so much more.<\/p>\n
When children are young, it\u2019s common to hear this one has mom\u2019s forehead or that one has dad\u2019s chin.\u00a0 Or maybe they have their grandmother\u2019s hair or their grandfather\u2019s ears.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think little kids especially like those comparisons.\u00a0 You can almost see them thinking. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u00a0 I\u2019m me.\u00a0 I\u2019m not someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
I still occasionally have an older relative tell me such things.\u00a0 Unlike a small child, now I enjoy hearing that.\u00a0 When I see Sylvester in the mirror, it\u2019s a connection I am glad to have. \u00a0My parents are gone twenty years, and it\u2019s nice to call them to mind.\u00a0 Beyond that relationship, I remember that I am a link in a chain that goes back many generations.\u00a0 The great majority of my ancestors I won\u2019t know, even if I do have my great, great, great grandfather\u2019s cheeks.<\/p>\n
We have babies in Pam\u2019s family right now, two great-nieces.\u00a0 As we\u2019ve begun to get together, I\u2019ve met these new people.\u00a0 Watching their small faces, I remember the intense staring that little ones do.\u00a0 Their eyes have such focus on those close to them.\u00a0 That\u2019s the parents most of the time.\u00a0 You can see babies using this time to learn how facial expressions work, how a smile turns the lips this way and a frown that way.<\/p>\n
There are those physical things we inherit.\u00a0 But beyond features and expressions, there are parts of our makeup we take from our parents that we\u2019ll never fully understand and appreciate.\u00a0 These are at least as important as our hair.\u00a0 When we are young, we absorb like sponges.\u00a0 Attitudes, biases, interests are put in us.<\/p>\n
Sometimes working on the farm, I\u2019ll come across a problem.\u00a0 And after it has been resolved effectively, or poorly handled in some cases, I remember working with my father in comparable situations.\u00a0 I suspect the way I analyze, sort information, see the options, and come to conclusions have similarities to the way my dad did.\u00a0 That is natural.<\/p>\n
In like fashion, I suspect there are ways I am a husband and a father that are rooted in things I saw my parents do.\u00a0 Some of that is advice they gave me.\u00a0 But more of it is watching how they carried themselves.\u00a0 We know children pay more attention to what we do than what we say.<\/p>\n
Of course, there are large elements of mystery in this. \u00a0It\u2019s hardly predictable.\u00a0 Scientists can debate nature vs. nurture for hours.\u00a0 Many of us see our children, raised by the same parents in the same home, and are surprised how different they are.<\/p>\n
I look at our own children.\u00a0 I think it is difficult to see Pam and me or our influence in their grown selves.\u00a0 I am too close to them to see that.\u00a0 I still from time to time stop and feel amazed that here they are, three unique and beautiful people.\u00a0 They can certainly drive us nuts, but they are a miracle.\u00a0 Every parent has those moments.<\/p>\n
Then I remember the hand of the Creator in putting them on Earth and in their lives.\u00a0 They have a soul that was given to them in the womb.\u00a0 That is the greatest miracle.\u00a0 They have God\u2019s spirit.\u00a0 That\u2019s a bigger deal than Pam\u2019s hair or my nose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My sis-in-law, Gwen of Gibbon, came across a photo she shared with me.\u00a0 It was from about 40 years ago.\u00a0 Pam and I were dating or just married.\u00a0 My father Sylvester is in it.\u00a0 He was then about the age I am now.\u00a0 Gwen pointed out, and I couldn\u2019t deny, there were\/are strong similarities between …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-22 07:38:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123894"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123909,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123894\/revisions\/123909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}