You Look Just Like Him…

So here’s a funny thing. My husband and I both have dark hair, dark eyes. When we were presented with a blue-eyed baby with blond highlights we were, to say the least, quite surprised. At one point, when Elie was quite young, I even thought of having him tested to confirm he was really ours. Shmulik looks like us, and like his older sister. It just made no sense that we would have created a child with blue eyes.

I know all about recessive genes. Okay, not all about them, but enough to know that one descendant four generations back on one side, and another descendant five generations back on the other side, means we’re talking about a really unlikely chance. I gave up on that idea when I realized that if the awful truth was that Elie wasn’t ours, someone would take him from us and even the return of a “natural” son wouldn’t compensate not having Elie in our lives.

Somewhere deep inside, there remained this thought, this fear, that somehow the hospital had made a mistake. When I was expecting our fourth child, I showed the children an ultrasound image of the sibling they would have. “Who does he look like?” one of them asked.

The thought that went through my mind was that my first and third children look alike so Elie should have a turn. Without a second thought, I said, “like Elie.” When Davidi was born, he had those same blue eyes and blond highlights and he actually looks quite a bit like Elie. The shape of their faces, even the type of hair, is similar. I have always thought that Davidi was given to us as God’s way of saying, “you are an idiot, of course Elie is yours!”

I went to a conference today and a woman approached. “You look just like you son, like Elie,” she said to me.

Isn’t that wonderful? I loved it from the minute I heard it. No, I don’t see it. I don’t see that Elie and Shmulik look alike, and the woman agreed but I have had people tell me that it is obvious they are brothers. One soldier saw Shmulik and immediately identified him as Elie’s brother. “How do you know?” I asked her.

“They look alike,” she answered.

“No, they don’t,” I responded back, “they really don’t.”

“Sure they do, except for their coloring.”

Well, I still don’t see it, but it’s kind of nice that others do!

4 Comments

  1. Three of our children look very similar to each other (and to my husband) 2 look a bit like each other and 2 have completely different colouring – out of all of them, only one has the colouring I expected all of them to have – so you never know what you’re going to end up with! I think that family resemblances often come from expressions and mannerisms rather than features/colouring.

  2. There is a saying that genetically the children won’t resemble the parents but rather the grandparents.

    Sometimes a child will throw back to a previous ancestor generations before them.

    I happen to resemble one of my grandmothers and to this day my father always tells me so.

  3. Paula, it does not matter if you write about family resemblances (or lack of), throwing stones, the miluim, groceries, or family get-togethers….all of your blogs are just so heartwarming…I feel like I’ve known you for years…I’m sure we all do! We will be in Israel in late October to visit our son making Aliyah….hope to meet you..even for 10 minutes! JAN

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