I Just Wanted a Sandwich

She gazed at me, her eyes dancing their way across my face, until a warm smile appeared.

“I have to say, you look so much like your grandmother!”

I nodded, knowing I bore a resemblance to my late mama. I had always been a mix of both my mother and my father, a balance of Hungarian and Belgian, but in this particular conversation, the Hungarian was evident. 

I have her eyes. They’re grey and expressive (something that sometimes gets me in trouble when trying to hide how I feel), but what I notice the most is how sad they look when I’m just resting, which has led to many questions about what might be wrong. My father inherited them from her, too.

My nose I received from mom’s side. A classic Belgian nose from grandpa, that curves slightly when I smile. At some point I realized my brother has the same one, leading me to discover that I do, in fact, look like him in a wig.

My cheekbones and high forehead come from Hungary. Growing up in the Hungarian church, it was easy to spot the features that we all shared. Commonalities that made you realize at some point or another, your family was in the same place.

My brown hair, something I had always been slightly bitter about, was passed on from dad. You see, mom had this brilliant, fiery red mane, and I was always supremely jealous that my brother inherited it and I did not. 

As I sat there listening to my mom speak to my mama’s old friend, I started to think about the changes I had made to my face recently. 

Shortly after turning thirty-eight this summer, I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize myself. When did those wrinkles appear? Hadn’t my lips used to be more full? Are those jowls?

I poked at my face, knowing these changes couldn’t possibly have happened over night, but certainly feeling like they had.

“Perhaps I could just do a little tweaking”, I said out loud, waiting to hear any objections. Of course only the dog was home at the time, so I was in the clear to book an appointment. 

After a couple months of these tweaks, I did feel a bit better about myself. It wasn’t so much that I wanted to drastically change my appearance, but rather rewind the clock a few years. Looking in the mirror, I was pleased with the results.

But now, as I started to remember where the very essence of my appearance came from, I felt remorse. Had I, by making these changes, begun to erase the memory of these people who had lovingly passed their features onto me? When I look in the mirror, it is impossible not to see my grandmother and my father in my eyes. When I smile and see the curse of my nose, I can’t help but think of my grandfather working tirelessly on the family farm. My lips, the ones that I deemed not as full as they used to be, come from my mother, a gift that I cherished. To this day she doesn’t understand how beautiful she is, and how stunning she was. When I look back at pictures of her in her thirties, I see myself in her. 

Was my quest to feel better about myself slowly erasing the history that lives in me?

I walked down the country road, away from the family friend’s house and back to my family cabin. It had surely been a much more thought provoking lunch than I had anticipated. A quest for some salad and sandwiches had ended with me sitting in the forest, staring up at the trees. 

I certainly don’t want to erase them from me. This is how they live on. In every smile, every wrinkle, every expression, they’re there. I am an accumulation of all my ancestors, and with every needle, every small tweak, I feel myself pushing them away. 

Beauty, as it seems, is a collective of everyone who has come before me. Who am I to usher them away?