A Chat With The Mirror

The mirror looks at me, absorbed and quiet. "I wonder what you're made of", he says. I raise an eyebrow in question and I see a clear glimpse of my mother staring back at me. "Face borrowed from your mother, I can discern that much, what about the rest?" The rest? I proceed to look down at my arms, my fingers and the mirror snaps, "So you think the rest of you is all but arms, fingers and legs?!" I shake off the misty vision from the past where I sat giggling with my father as I pointed out the eerie similarities between our feet. The rest of me? The rest of what? "The person behind the face", the mirror offered.


The person I am today, the person I have been growing into, the person I will be tomorrow, and hope to remain so in the days that come after tomorrow, the force that drives me, the love that binds me, the wisdom that guides me, are largely due to one person- my only hero in life, my greatest teacher in life - my father. I am lucky, I tell the mirror, nature blessed me with a lot of his genes, no surprise our birth dates are so close, I chuckle. Right from when I was four and I picked up a book, his crossword puzzle, made him play the songs he listened to a million times over, and still listen to those songs a billion times over, I learned to reason, and disciplined myself to please him and follow his steps to the tee. A love so overwhelming, emanating from an inseparable cord between us that makes one wince with pain as the other merely grimaces.


But I can never come close to many things, I tell the mirror. His staunch sense of duty, his all encompassing love that persists even during the toughest of circumstances with the most heartless of people, his sheer determination, courage and will, his brave sacrifices, his undying altruistic spirit, his wisdom, his intelligence...and I stop as my eyes blind me with tears.


The mirror looks on silently as I wipe away the mists. I don't know what hurts me more, I continue. My own pain, or the thought of him suffering due to my pain. It's a vicious cycle, I tell you. I want to stop my pain, stop tormenting him. Do you know how to stop it? The mirror sighs and speaks, "Daddy's little girl, aren't you? Seems to me, both of you cannot find anyone else to love each other so much... well, no wonder, Dawkins says it's due to both of you sharing those damned genes!"


Yes, we share way too many of those... and that's who I'm made of, to answer your question. And it won't ever change the fact that he will be my proud hero, forever. The mirror smiles and fades away.