Genetics Is a Strange Thing

Ask anyone who knows us and they will tell you:  my sister takes after my dad's side of the family.  She looks like his side, she acts like his side, she can not be disowned.

I look like my mom's side of the family.  In my looks, my actions, my emotional side.

And, I am OK with that.  Even when I walk by a mirror and without really thinking wonder when my mom let her hair go gray (a fate worse than death).

I love still be a kid at heart when Christmas arrives, although I have yet to make a transatlantic call to sing jingle bells in the ear of my daughter on Christmas day.  My mom did just that one Christmas when we lived in Spain and I will always remember it with a smile.

My mother was a crafty person and made beautiful ceramics, crocheted for awhile and was an artist in cross stitch.  I love to try my hand at crochet and other small (and easy) crafts.  I even did cross stitch once before my eyes decided that to continue to do so I would need squares the size of gingham. :-)

Her family and friends were my mother's world, as they are mine.  I remember one time when I was to receive an award she attended with broken dentures because she wanted someone to be there.  It was understood, however, that I was not to introduce her to ANYONE as she did not want to talk and reveal her plight.

She was always scheming ways to help her friends or raise their spirits or whatever she felt they needed just then.  I remember the year she stuffed and then gift wrapped dozens of empty cigarette packs to make them look like small presents that she could then use to decorate a friend's tree at their doughnut shop.  And the time she crocheted a ROOM  SIZE rug for a friend's living room because they couldn't afford new carpeting for awhile.

I am proud to have inherited these characteristics of my mother and her family. 

I just wish I had inherited the family's characteristic concerning arthritis:  basically they didn't get it or got it late and very mildly.

On the arthritis front God seems to have decided I will take after dad's family.  Their motto seems to be "Get it early and go for the gusto."  Drat! (And yes, I am feeling some of my joints this morning.  Thank you for asking.)

Genetics is a strange thing,  isn't it.