What Happened To Those Innocent Days?

I was at chiefbiscuit's blog, reading about her day out with her granddaughter who is 8 years old. This picture is my sister who is 7, me who is 8, and my baby brother in my lap who is about 1 years old. I think this picture was taken just before we went to church.

It is funny about how our personalities show in our faces. My sister on the left has that sparkling charismatic personality that would have won on American Idol. She had the opportunity to go to college in a theater program. Her hormonal imperative overrode her talents. She now has five beautiful children of her own.

I was always the observer. I would hide and watch. You can see that I was shy. I never had that 100 watt smile. I see why my father could see his grandmother in my face. I met my great-grandmother (she died at 98). She was a remarkable woman. Very quiet. But, she was a storyteller. Her father was a school teacher. He was also an artist with calligraphy. She had a peacock with his name that he had penned on her wall. I sometimes wished that I could have met him.

In the late 1800s, he packed up his family from the Jersey Isles and took his family west to Utah. My grandmother's pictures showed a handsome kind man.

My brother on my lap is now in his late 30's. He is a quiet man. His genetic heritage is also in his face. Of all my brothers (four), he is the child that is stamped with my father's genetic DNA. He has my father's face.

I was going to talk about being eight, but as I look at those lost days, I see our grandparents and our parents in our faces. It reminds me that we are all given potential which is encoded in our genes.

How we use that potential is up to us.