Mirror image. Those words floated through my mind while I was working. I’m always searching for topics, a starting point to write and expand an idea. Sometimes I have many choices that ignite quickly like one of the sparklers my mother-in-law used to put on my boys’ birthday cakes.
Other times I have to scramble to record fragments of phrases, hoping to capture enough of what I imagined so that I can work with it later. Occasionally when I have the time, the idea no longer reflects the larger picture; I don’t know where I had hoped to go with it.
“Mirror image” immediately takes me to my dad. As I’ve gotten older I am astonished how much of him I see in my mirror. One of the lodge residents told me a few years ago that he had known my dad. Robert was still in school; my dad a young working family man. When he read of who my father was, he told me that when he saw me hurrying down the hall, straight-backed, busy, but always friendly, he could see my dad in me.
Mom and I used to walk all over town, then go shopping or pop in for a coffee. We did visitation at the Kiwanis manors, the lodge and long-term care. Folks were used to seeing us together but many didn’t realize we were mother and daughter. Physically we don’t have much in common but our natures are similar. When friends of my siblings met me, they had difficulty believing that I was a part of the same family, until they met dad. I have his hair type, facial structure and gestures.
I have always been a serious, behind-the-scenes person. I like to visit one-to-one with a new acquaintance, having no interest in participating in larger groups or the potluck settings common in my church family. Like my dad I’m often sensitive to someone’s needs. I’m the one who stops to allow another motorist into the line of traffic when I can see that they’ve been waiting a long time. I also have to straighten the huge rubber mats in the doorways of businesses that are always askew, trying to prevent a mishap. Thanks dad, for that insight.
My Mennonite heritage reflects who I have become. The male and female models I observed were all hard-working, caring folks. Hard work was almost next to godliness in our home. The process of learning to relax and download has been a more difficult exercise.
Our parents taught us the ways of God: how to pray, how to show compassion for our neighbours, how to live. In the process they showed us how to mirror our heavenly Father.
- Hoey is a longtime Gazette columnist
