I'm sorry I look like her

[Ilooklikeher]

I'm sorry, that I look like her. I have her genes, I have her blood and I have her hairstyle.

I am not her.

I am not the mother you had when you were a child. I am not the one who preferred paperbacks and chocolates in fancy boxes with shiny ribbon bows to a small boy left crying on the doormat with his beloved dog.

I am sorry that I look like her. I am sorry that the photos of me with my children on a fancy-dress day caused a sharp intake of breath and a shock like a slip in time. It isn't 1954, I am not her. I just look like her.

I'm sorry that the time I chose to dress in vintage clothes, nails red and heels high, that I took you back there. I can see that it hurt you. It wasn't meant to. I am sorry that I look like her.

But I don't look like her now. She is 95 now, frail and lost in a hospital bed. She doesn't know where she is, or who she is. She has broken bones and a broken memory. I can see that it hurts you.

You want to be able to justify your resentment for her. How could she be so selfish towards a little boy like that? How could she send him away like that? Off on a sleeper train, so she could dance the night away through the school holidays, and off with a trunk in term time, packed up, shipped away, out of sight, out of mind. I'm sorry about that, but I am not her.

But here she is now, 95 years old and she doesn't need you, doesn't need anyone, except the strong arm of a hospital porter to keep her safe, and nurses to watch her, catch her, bathe her, keep her going, but for what?

I am not her. I am now the age she was when you were seven. My child is six. But I am not her.

I will not send my child away. I will love her and I will treasure her, as you have done with me. You have learned from her mistakes. You have shown me how to be a better parent, so I have learned from her mistakes.

I look like her, I really do, but I am not her. I'm sorry it hurts.

for you

I wish you peace of mind.

That was beautifully written. I hope you let him read it too.

Change your hair.

that's awful. my kids are the image of their father and he was a monster to me, i don't love mykids any the less for it. your mother is not right to love you less because of a physical resemblence to somebody else.

or your father. sorry.

? Eh ? I'm very thick indeed. Can someone explain this to a simpleton?

I took it as written to a brother shipped off to boarding school, but 95 feels too old.

So I guess it's a daughter to her father and the old lady is grandma.

(If the writer is 10 years younger than me, with family around the same ages as mine, that works perfectly)

I thought brother too at first.

But father makes more sense.

Agree it is beautifully written.

really confused... is it a letter to yourself? About how you look like your own mum...? Sorry

But

I thought it was a letter to her husband......

Oh this is so sad, is it to your Dad, OP?

Isn't it a letter written by a wife to her husband. That the author reminds her husband of his mother who treated him badly as a child?

Otherwise I'm confused too.

That's very beautiful.

I wish you peace and happiness, OP.

I think it's written by the OP to her father. It's her grandmother who is 95 in a hospital bed.

That's how come she shares 'her' genes and blood.

I was thinking the same as here but now thinking to your dad about his mum?

Anyway beautifully written op

Not a wife to husband addressing husband's mother - OP is speaking about having the same 'genes' and blood.

OP, I'm guessing this is addressed to your father. It sounds beautifully sincere whoever the intended recipient is. It sounds as if you had a good relationship with your (father?) and hopefully in time, he (?) will find it easier to content with the memories.

for you and your family.
A beautiful and thoughtful post.

I thought it was wife to husband ......and then thought it very weird to have married somebody who looked very much like their mum.
So, none the wiser!

I thought it was to a brother.

I thought she was writing it to herself! Ok, I am weird. Like a kind of split personality. But 95 does sound more like a grandmother than a mother.

I thought it was a creative writing exercise.

I've read again, definitely daughter talking to her Dad about his mother.

It's nice, I hope it makes you feel a bit better having written it down.

Thank you everyone. Sorry to have posted and run, I didn't really expect any responses, I just had some words I needed to "get out" somewhere.

Yes, it's to my dad, about my grandma. She is now in late stages of dementia which came on very suddenly and has had a profound effect on us all.

I do look just like her when she was my age (35). LOL at humblepiemonster my hair is normally not a problem, but one day recently it was done up 1950s style, and my dad really struggled with it, as my two small daughters and I were all dressed up in costume for an event. I knew why it was, and I just felt sad that it made him feel so sad, if you see what I mean.

It's only as my grandma's health has declined that my dad has started to tell me about his own childhood. He said she is without doubt the most selfish person he has ever met (in her "real life" personality, not to do with her illness) and his childhood was awful. As a grandma she was fab to me and my siblings, so it was like another side was being revealed to someone I thought I knew.

She is still his mother, though.

"I thought it was a creative writing exercise"

Me too Owl.

Humblepie...tsk!