My family’s pretty small. People have come, and some have gone -- either from old age or young foolishness. The way I look to those who remain tells me something about myself. It’s not always what I want to hear or face, but it’s there. As sure as sure can be.

Maybe you see something of yourself in the people around you now and then.

Sometimes, my mirror hands me back a glimpse of my mother. When I’m not at all prepared, she’s standing there,. instead of the me I expect to see.

My mother and I don’t look that much alike. She’s short. I’m tall. She’s not very big (I think I could pick her up and carry her); I’d be a heavier load. Her hair is still as black as pure ebony, without a touch of dye in her entire lifetime. The single patch of pale that sneaks in near her forehead is a little lighter than the gray (“silver,” my husband says) that is moving in fast near my greenish eyes (hers are chestnut brown).

After 88 years, she’s been granted more wrinkles than I have. About 30 years her junior (and lighter in complexion), I make a point to avoid the invisible rays of the sun. I don’t fret as much, either, so my face doesn’t wad itself up with worry nearly as often as hers has over the years.

Then again, she was born in a different time and place. When she was young, a major world war was being waged. Horrible things were happening with people’s hard-earned dollars. She had a brother who played mean tricks on her, and sisters who required all kinds of special attention. The older one got pregnant “somehow,” the youngest one almost drowned in the stream that flowed past the family home. Another took up prescription drugs later in life and passed away.

In the span of my mother’s lifetime, I have managed to grow up, earn a few diplomas, marry a time or two, find a good job and then another, tread water and call for help, give the world a child who's already making a difference, and oftentimes remind myself that my mother and I have been alike for a longer time than we’ve ever been different.