When Zach was born, the first question that most of our friends asked was, "who does he look like?". Diplomatically and politely some would say, "he looks like his father, or he looks like his mother." Such declaration of truth or falsity, of course, made us proud or guilty. Others, unfortunately will bluntly tell you, "no, he does not look like you, but he looks like his uncle." The most uncharitable or truthful statement that I heard was, "Kung kamukha ni Alex, pangit, kung kamukha ni Manoy mo (referring to my brother-in-law), gwapo".
I do brushed aside such comment especially if I hear an independent and objective assessment from unknown people who will say all of of a suddent the words, " He's so cute, he is so adorable, and he looks exactly like his father." Even as of this writing, there were still some members of our family who are so concerned of who does Zach look like. That prompted me to ask the question, why are they so preoccupied by that. Are they trying to identify Zach to themselves or the other way around? I was more positive with the latter. Why? Because one identifies with the beauty or the handsome or the intelligent or the perfect to make himself beautiful, handsome or perfect! Zach can not do that. Why? He has no sense yet of identification. He goes with the flow of our sense of appreciation of beauty, or handsomeness, or perfectness. He does not know who does he look like?
Hence, people around Zach, that includes us, parents, (more so with my bother in law), identify with Zach's adorable face, infectious smile and calmness. Zach was the perfect epitome of what we want us to be, which unfortunately God never gave us. We identify ourselves with Zach and not the other way around.
Furthermore, Zach has his own identity different from us. He may have some of our physical traits, but everything else is his. That makes him unique and different. Hence, he can not be me, his mother or his uncle. He has his own life to live, devoid of our own prodding (and begging) to be like us.
This makes him independent from us that is why when time comes for him to leave us to seek his own life, we have no hold of him. We have no right to dictate what life he should live after we have done our part of rearing him.
2 comments:
uy guilty ako diyan! sensitive ka pala papa alex! sowee, hehe. i guess you can't take that away from people. it's part of our nature to be excited and curious. anyway, tama ka rin. the child deserves a personality of his own. that's what will make zach unique one day :) for now, stage aunties like me will have to settle for the "little alex/jaz", as we'd like to think of him now - the special little boy that completely embodies both yours and jaz' goodness and strengths, and all your hopes and dreams :)
Great site loved it alot, will come back and visit again.
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