My cousin KT sent me this photo a couple of years ago. Peggy looks so young...and she was. She was 18 when she met my dad, 21 when they married, 22 when I was born. She was just a baby herself.
For my first 25 years, I would have said we were opposites. She was almost 6 foot tall. I've had hips since I was 11 and barely scrape 5'6". Aside from our voices, even though I tried desperately to mask the girlish pitch with Galouises in my 20s, aside from DNA, what did we share? Then it shifted and I could see the similarities, the mannerisms. I was both horrified and proud. Peggy was a force of nature. I'm an Alpine swift, looking for my next perch.
After she died, I stopped in to visit my grandpa's best friend. 'Rachel, I love you. But I don't think I can ever look at you again...All I can see is your mom.' He gave me a hug, started to cry. He died a year later and I respected his wishes, never called in again. I didn't take it personally. Sometimes the lines between the living and the dead are too blurred for the people left alive, especially as their gloaming is starting to fall, gently, inevitably.
The last time I was home, one of my uncles just stared, transfixed. at me. 'I can't believe how much you look like my sister.' I laughed, partly because he and I look so similar, there are times people mistake me for his daughter. 'Isn't wonderful?'
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