I Look Like You

 written July 27, 2016

Dear Christa—

While Mel was visiting last week, I heard Grandma say, “You’re so pretty.” Mel turned and lovingly replied, “Grandma, I look like you.”

It’s true. Young pictures of Grandma do look a lot like Melody. What a sweet thing to say to someone whose youth is long lost. Gone are the days of vitality—of raising five boys on a southwestern Colorado farm, of running a pet shop, of living in a world of outdoor facilities that many Americans had left behind.

Do we see ourselves in the youth who follow us? I, too, recall the gentleness she afforded me—a young mother and daughter-in-law, and her words of wisdom.

I haven’t always kept the advice of the women who’ve influenced me. I haven’t always kept my own advice for that matter. Yet, overall, there is a thread of consistency that runs through generation to generation. It binds us. It makes us family. It makes us friends. It makes us love, and it makes us hope.

It reminds me of the body of Christ, rejoicing with each other in the good and buoying each other up in the bad. People look at the world and wonder what it is coming to.

It is coming to be like us.

Do we impart kindness? Do we impart hatred? Do we reflect Jesus in all our thoughts and ways?

One day our children and grandchildren will turn to us and say—

I look like you.

—the parishioner who doesn’t do anything