I'm gonna go see the baby!

Very soon, I'm gonna take to the highway and go drive to where my daughter is living (about 1000 miles away) to go meet little Amelia. Of course, MOST of us get happy and excited to meet a new addition to the family, but this means more to me, I think, than to some other people, for a very specific reason.

Amelia is only my 2nd "blood relative" that I've ever known. As I like to tell my doctors, my mother was never pregnant. I share no genetic material with either of my parents. As much as I loved my mother, and utterly adore my Dad, I've never looked like either of them - and forget about SPTLM, there's NO resemblance there. There was always something missing (to me) in life, when I'd hear how someone was "The spit & image of Great Uncle Whoever".

I didn't look like anybody. Nobody else looked like me. I don't have my mom's nose, or my dad's eyes. In a photo of the family, I could just as easily be photobombing the snapshot.

When my daughter was smaller, she looked rather more like her father's side of the family. Same head-shape as her paternal grandfather. Ears like her Dad. She had my haircolor, but his curls. But I knew - I KNEW there were tiny things I noted, and she would someday look "like me" in some way.

Lately, I see photos of her and I can identify a little more of "me" in her pictures. I won't go into detail, she probably wouldn't appreciate it - but that tiny thrill of having someone who looks like me just tickles me every time I notice it. Don't get me wrong - I could not have picked out better parents if I'd had a mug-shot book and CV on them before joining the family. Yes, there are, have been, and always will be, some significant differences, but I love them dearly. They are my parents.

Not that everyone in the family sees it that way. Some thought of us as "those adopted kids", rather than legitimate members of the family.(Yes, I am glaring at YOU, Cousin Laurie S.)

So, "Cousin" Laurie - I'm gonna be going to visit my beautiful granddaughter very soon. And someday, she'll look SOMEHOW like me - even if it is only the shape of her fingernails or the size of her... um... chest. And that will make me happy.

Meanwhile, I fart in your general direction.