Parents

There they were, right there on the ends of my legs! My father's feet! Oh my God, my mother's skin is hanging off my chin. I look at my hands and see daddy's wide fingers and large knuckles. There smack dab on my face are my grandmother's eyes. Everyday we say and hear others say that this or that looks just like so and so. I am guilty of doing that, especially when I see some feature on a grandchild that so resembles one of his or her parents, my own children.

What we don't see quite as often is what is in their heart. Will that heart be the sweet, forgiving one of my mother? Does one inherit such things? Do we teach our kids to be loving, forgiving people? Are they born with it? Do they just pick it up from us? Do they only learn from example? I'd like to think that loving and forgiving are a combination of all of those things.

Just recently, I peeked behind the curtain of one of my sons' heart. What I saw was that what he had learned made him a better person than I am. His heart and soul are exactly what I'd hoped they would be. He is a grown man with a child of his own. One day I hope he will peek under the curtain that surrounds her heart and see the same thing. Inherited or learned; both form the person and make a mother proud.