I’m so glad that you did tell the story. It is exactly what is meant by the word heartwarming I teared up myself. Besides the teary part I was pretty impressed at a single working woman choosing to and being allowed to adopt at that time.
Also, if anyone is counting add me to the list of voice sharers. My mom, sister, and I all sound alike, and share certain less than common expressions. My son thinks it’s a riot. My dad and his brother are indistinguishable on the phone.
And I’m reminded of a story of my grandmother’s. She and her sister (1.5 years apart) were also “vocal twins”. So much so that as teenagers they would just hand eachother the phone signaling and mouthing “you talk to him. I’ll be right back” and after a few minutes they’d switch back. Either the teenage boys in East Rutherford in the 30s never caught on, or didn’t really care.
My husband has predominately Italian ancestry, while I am of English/Irish/Scottish decent, so he has an olive complexion and I’m pale and freckled. My daughter got his dark complexion and my son is fair-skinned, so people are constantly remarking on their resemblance to the like-skinned parent. However, my daughter looks a lot like me in other features, and I see my husband far more in my son.
I look enough like my parents that the relationship is quite obvious. My sister looks a bit like my mom, nothing like my dad, but a bit like my dad’s dad.
When I was a kid, everyone told me I looked like my Dad, (apart from the beard), and I definitely looked like my brother- I had people coming up to me in random situations and asking me if we were siblings.
Since I got older though, I didn’t seem to look so much like anyone- until my mother was clearing out her Dad’s house when he went into care- she found a photo of her mother, who had walked out when she was a toddler, and put it next to a picture of me as a teenager- the two pictures could be the same person- same pose, same expression, the only difference is that my grandmother had slightly curled hair, but it could be artificial.
I think my Grandpa spotted the resemblance a few years back, from the way I noticed him looking at me- but no one else could really remember her, and he never said anything.
Being adopted, I look like nobody in my family. However, I have so many of my mom’s mannerisms that people have correctly guessed I’m hers.
TheKid looks like her dad. He and I both have pointed chins and high cheekbones, but when I look at her, I see him. Same ice blue eyes, same mouth, same crooked ears. Her eyes are set like mine, and the poor thing has my nose, though. She also has a ton of his mannerisms, which drives me slightly bonkers.
Someone meeting my family for the first time asked me in an aside if both the children were mine. They do have in common their father’s blue eyes, but everything immediately noticable – body type, hair, skin, is different.
We have an interesting photo of my daughters and my sister’s children. Looking at that photo you would surmise that the cousings were siblings. That is, my older daughter looks like my sister’s daughter and my younger looks like my sister’s son. The further weirdity is that the features my older daughter shares with her cousin are things they got from their respective fathers, who are NOT related. More specifically, they resemble their completely unrelated paternal grandmothers.
My younger daughter came across a photo of me when I was about five years old and asked where and when it was taken, since she didn’t remember ever owning a dress like that. Well, yeah, 'cause that’s not you. Comparing photos of 5 yo me and 5 yo daughter, the resemblance is striking, especially in a b/w photo since our eye color is not the same.
I have the hair, eyes, skin, height and bone structure of my dad. Except I am massively overweight and dad is skinny.
I get my weight from my mom’s side of the family, which sucks because not only am I fat but I have a huge frame. So while mom can be cute and tiny (she’s short too) and pudgy and at least wear normal-sized shoes, I am just a monster.
My brother has my mom’s hair, eyes and skin. Both of them have jet-black hair, brown eyes and olive skin. Me and dad have light brown hair, blue eyes and pale skin.
My hair is very unique. My dad keeps his hair short now but if you saw pictures of him from the 70s, when he had it my length and longer - you’d see from where I got this freakish mop.
Oh and my niece? Scary spitting image of her mom. She’s only 2 but she looks exactly like a Mini-Me of my SIL.
I keep joking that the next baby (who is due in Nov and is female) is obviously going to be dark like my brother, and since they won’t tell me what the name is, she is now officially “Snooki”
Back when I was in my teens, I looked so much like my father that people would mistake me for him. Seriously. His friends would walk up to me and say “Hey Mark, yada yada yada…” [my dad’s name is Mark, in case you didn’t get it]
Nowadays we don’t look much alike. I’m quite a bit bigger and healthier; and he’s very much showing signs of age and years of alcohol and drug abuse. Although we still have the same schnozz and the same droopy eyes.
I don’t look anything at all like my mother.
I don’t have kids, so I have no basis of comparison there.
I look very much like both of my parents, and so does my brother. People can tell immediately that we are all close family. In personality, I am like both of them, as well, although I have different beliefs and interests. I am told that I look so much like my paternal grandmother, that the first time I went back to The Old Country, the relatives who met me at the airport recognized me immediately because of the resemblance.
Interestingly enough, I do have a double in the Seattle area. I was mistaken for her several times in restaurants and shops. I’ve never seen her, but once I saw a photograph in the Seattle Times of someone who looked a lot like me.
Now, my grandmother’s father had two families, and I wonder if my double is descended from his other family. I am almost tempted to do some research and find out.
I look exactly like my male-line great-grandfather. No, really - I have a photo of him in his WW1 uniform and you could actually confuse him for me in costume.
No bio-kids, but my stepdaughter looks quite a bit like me, even more so when she was young (she’s 19 now). We have similar blue eyes, fair frekled skin, and blonde hair.
I look quite a bit like my mother, especially in facial shape and body shape, and I have her voice. Friends who meet my mother will often say something like “It’s so weird to hear Paula’s voice coming out of someone else’s mouth.”
I only met my bio-dad a few weeks ago (long story short, my parents were unwed teens in the early sixties and my grandmother was a nasty bitch, and it’s amazing what you can find on the internet these days). I have his eyes and hair, and his ears.
I’m pretty unique looking and live in the Seattle area and I have a double (my only 2 family members up here are my half sister and mother, so I know we aren’t related).
Multiple times people have talked to me as if I was this person (all using the same name), and one time I showed up for a drug test for a job application, and the receptionist snapped at me VERY rudely that I could only take the test once. I said “I know, this is my first time here.” She then looked at my ID and asked where I was testing for, and then called the doctor out to come look at me. Neither could believe I wasn’t this guy.
When my brother and I were kids, he looked very much like our father’s side of the family and I looked very much like our mother’s. As adults, we look like each other . . . not like either side of the family.
I look enough like my father that when we were all gathering for his funeral, I entered the room and scared the living shit out of my uncle, the person in the room who had known him the longest.
It’s odd. I put on a blonde wig one time, and I was actually mistaken for my mom. But then people who know my dad say I look like him, too. And when I’m with my maternal grandfather, everyone says I’m a spitting image of him (and that my sister looks like my grandmother).
I don’t have bio kids but since my parents are white and Indian it’s easy to see who we look most like. I look 75% like dad, 25% like mom, middle brother is an even 50/50 and the youngest looks just like my mom (or rather, like one of her brothers did at his age). His coloring still gives it away that he’s partly non-white but he’s easily mistaken for Greek or Italian.
My features are the darkest, middle bros are an even split and the youngest has much finer, white-oriented features.
All three of us have these large teeth, like Movie Star capped teeth. That’s from mom’s side. I have a narrow jaw like dad (24 teeth, represent!) but both brothers have wide jaws that easily accommodate all of their teeth with no need for braces.
All 3 kids look similar to each other.
When my other half (dirty blonde, blue eyed) and I were in a store with my mom (Spanish looking, pale skin but dark yet fine features) the cashier assumed he was her son and I was his girlfriend/unrelated.
ETA: I had a father/daughter come and get something I put in Craigslist last night. He was a 50 something man and she a 20 year old college kid - she was taller than him - and they looked freaking identical. Never seen anything quite so stark, even between same age identical twins.
