Birds of a feather

I recently had the pleasure of having dinner with my sister and mom — a rare girls-only night that happens far less often then it should.

Midway through our chattering and sandwiches, the waitress, sensing that this dinner had a more celebratory aura than a casual sit-down, asked us what the occasion was. No occasion, we explained, just a mother and her two girls catching up. A surprised look came over her face.

“Oh, you’re related!” she said, as she turned squarely to my sister, “but you look nothing like them!”

This pointed remark isn’t the first time my sister has been singled out for her lack of resemblance to the rest of my family. With both my brother and I inheriting my mom’s curly, dark hair and freckles, I have been mistaken as sisters with some of my friends more often than with my actual sister, with her straight blond hair and porcelain complexion.

But in a sharp conversation between her and my mother — with their identical wits and sharp honesty — it will quickly come to you: yes, they’re definitely related. Their commonalities are in their personalities, from their love of animals to their (sometimes infuriating) stubbornness.

Why is it that society seems to focus more on inherited physical traits and less on inherited personalities? We often hear that one can have a parent or grandparent’s eyes or ears or mouth. Only then is it followed, if mentioned at all, by a relative’s spirit or mind. I admit that physical attributes are more obvious at first introduction, but I rarely hear relatives note I’m growing to think more and more like my dad — it’s always my mom’s characteristics I’m compared to.

As my niece grows up, I hope that I can pass on my intellectual, not bodily, traits. While I would love to one day see my mother’s eyes peering back from my children’s faces, I’d much rather our conversations be littered with my father’s humor as they grow. I have photographs and countless hours of film to record my family’s physical characteristics. What I won’t have — and hopefully this won’t be an issue until the far, far future — are relics to remember my mom’s quirkiness and my aunt’s culinary skills.

Compared to hair color and the shape of a nose or chin, I believe that those individualities are much more worth preserving.