Who Does Your New Grandchild Look Like?

New Grandchild

Grandparents spend a lot of time gazing at their new grandchild and analyzing their looks.

“I think she looks like you, dear,” the fraternal grandmother will say.

“She looks just like your baby photos,” the maternal grandmother whispers to the new mother.

The last few days I’ve been able to spend several hours with my newest granddaughter. Her parents are remodeling a house and they are busy painting cabinets. While they painted, we played. She’s only two and half months old so she really doesn’t play, but she coos and I talk. She cries and I walk around and bounce her. She listens and I sing her lullabies.

Something spine tingling weird happened today while I was walking her through my house. There was no one in the house except the two of us. I walked through the foyer and the sunlight shot a ray of light through the front door and it landed directly on the baby. I was looking deep into her eyes thinking about who she resembled and when the light washed over her I got a chill…Just for a moment I saw my mother’s blue eyes and my grandmother’s greenish brown eyes reflected in the eyes of my new grandchild.

My mother and grandmother have been gone for years but for that tiny fraction of a second they were with me, shining through my granddaughter’s eyes. I had goosebumps on my arms and it wasn’t because there was a fan turned on above me. It was one of just a handful of life experiences that I’ve had that defy logic.

Who We Are

Each grandchild is a gift from above and a part of generations gone on before us. Their genetics may define what they look like but they don’t determine who they are.

Today I read a friend’s post about the day she was born. Her mother took her to the steps of a church and left her. She celebrates every birthday not knowing whose nose she has, or whose eyes her are shaped like hers. And it really doesn’t matter.

She is the master of her own destiny.

And so are we. No matter who we look like.