L is for Lynette (aka My Clone)

If my husband is my opposite (see April 11), my mother is my clone. Or, well, I'm her clone? Something like that. Today is Friday the 13th, but I don't need to switch bodies with my mom to feel like I've walked in her shoes.

Observe:

Mom was an Air Force brat, so her parents traveled all over and instilled in her a sense of global consciousness. My father is English, and my mother was an Air Force brat. Voila global consciousness.

Her parents raised her with a love of the theatre. When she directed Fiddler on the Roof for our church group years ago, I played Tevya's youngest daughter. Turns out limelight is genetic and addictive.

Mom majored in Theatre Arts at BYU, with an emphasis in directing and a minor in English. Me, too.

When she met my dad, she left her entire family to follow him to the land of his origin (though they returned a couple years later). When I married my husband, I left my entire family to follow him to the land of his origin. Fortunately, we're close enough to visit a couple times a year.

Mom worked outside the home most of the years I was growing up. My children also have a working mother and stay-at-home father.

She eventually settled down as a legal secretary and later became a paralegal. I worked at her law firm in high school and college . . . and went to law school.

Mom reads fiction and can be relied upon to have a book at hand at all times. I read fiction and feel lost if I don't have a book nearby. Neither of us read much nonfiction outside of work.

I have my mother's hips, her struggle with weight, and my face flushes just like hers when I exercise. Speaking of her face, all that blood means that we get fewer wrinkles than the rest of you. Which is a Very Cool Thing. Mostly because I'm also her spitting image, which means I'll look just like this in a few decades:

I know. You're jealous.

Okay, side stories: When I had her wedding picture copied once, the copy shop girl completely flipped at how much we look alike. That same year, we went to Hawaii together (dad was busy, dang it) and two boys my age (23) checked us out. One of them pointed to the one next to him, then to each of us and proclaimed "Hey! Brother, brother, sister, sister!" Mom was not amused when I returned with "Mother, daughter!"

There are, of course, some differences. I'll never have Mom's neat handwriting, I struggle to be as self-sacrificing as she can be, and I'm a tad more outgoing than she ever was. You'd think, though, that we would have butted heads as I grew, and would have constantly been at daggers-drawn since we're so similar. We weren't. (Not as much as you'd think, I mean.) I give full credit for that to her generous, wise, and loving nature. (It certainly wasn't because I was an obedient, malleable child.) She gave me room to grow and the tools to become whatever I wanted.

Is it any wonder I chose to follow her?

So are you your mother's daughter? Father's son? Do you fight it or just accept the inevitable?