The mirror in their eyes.

Every time I look into the eyes of my children I see the reflection of myself. Not literally, but as a reflection of my genes (looks), behaviour and personality. In each of them there is some of me. Half of who they are comes directly from who I am.

Sometimes a child will look more like one parent over the other, or may act more like one parent, or may be a more even mix of the two. For my own two children they have both definately received a lot of my features (poor souls). They both look remarkably similar to each other at the same age and to myself at that time. From this it would be easy to draw a conclusion that I would look not too dissimilar to my donor, as while I do have certain features from my mother there are a lot of differences acquired from my donor which would appear to have been passed down to my own children. I am able to draw some comfort from this assumption, yet it really does not help in anyway in dealing with the issues I have with identity, heritage and genetic connections. While my son is too young to draw behavioural cues from, my wife often says "she is so your daughter" when referring to something my daughter has done or said. This gives me great joy in the connection that we both have but it also provides me with great sorrow because I am unable to see the same thing between myself and my genetic father quite simply because I do not know him. The reflection of my donor in me is hidden by this severed connection, unlike the reflection of myself in my daughter.

I have a reflection into the future but no reflection into the past.