Not Far from the Tree

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about heredity as it applies to me. I don’t have any biological children and I only see my parents once a year, my brothers less often than that. So being around people who share my physical appearance or my personality traits just doesn’t happen. I realized this week, though, that I am my mother. Here are some things we have in common:


We both wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, stressing about dumb stuff or serious stuff or whatever.

My mom started weight watchers when she was 44, lost 70 pounds, and has kept it off the rest of her life (I hope that since I am 44 I am going to repeat that trend, though I have much more than 70 to lose.

She likes structure and she likes to document things -- though hers are in small spiral notebooks, and mine are on blogs for the world to see. I guess I really don’t have too much to hide.

My mom makes lists. In fact, she showed me a love letter that she had written to my dad before they were married where she told him she had been making a list of things she wanted to tell him. I do stuff like that.

She talks.... a lot.... and when she writes, she writes a lot. yeah, i know you know we have that in common.

She likes structure and consistency and schedules and cooperation. I do too. I just don’t get them the way I want to.

Neither of us care much about how we look -- makeup, clothes, that stuff has never been important.

We both married men who we can’t control, and we like that.

Even though we have a lot in common, i only hope to be like her in her amazing faith, her ability to pray for others and see prayer answered, I know I am like her in many ways, but I am not enough like her. She is truly a great woman.