It's not a twin sister, in case you jumped to that conclusion. I have identical twin granddaughters, but I am not a twin myself. Moreover, I don't much resemble either of my two younger sisters, if you want to know the truth. If you saw the three of us standing together and didn't know we were related, you would probably guess that we had sprung from three entirely different gene pools.
My husband, on the other hand, has on occasion been mistaken for one of his younger brothers*, with whom he shares a strong resemblance. And he also has a celebrity doppelganger. If he had a dime for every time someone told him in his younger days that he looked like a young Dick Van Dyke, he'd be a rich man today. Here's a picture of Dick Van Dyke, far left, with the cast of his wonderful 60's television show. Put a cowboy hat on him (and a space between his front teeth), and that's my hubby. Yet to my knowledge, no one has ever seen a resemblance that strong between me and any other person--of either the celebrity or non-celebrity variety.
But now I've been told I have a look-alike, and my interest has been piqued.My husband and I recently ran into a longtime friend after the 11:00 Mass at our parish church. This friend always goes to the 11:00 and we almost never do, preferring the 9:00; the fact that our college-aged son was home at the time and likes to sleep in a little longer than his parents do was the main reason we bumped into this good friend at the later Mass. Anyway, while we were catching up, he told us that on a Sunday a few weeks back he had seen a woman who looked just like me. So much so, he said, that when the Mass ended he was just about to go over and strike up a conversation with her before he realized that it wasn't me.
I am intrigued by the idea that I have a doppelganger, and she may even live right here in the same small town. (Of course, she may have just been visiting, and will never show up in our church again, but...) I kind of can't believe it and want to see her for myself. I can't imagine what that would be like, looking into the face of a person who looks exactly like you do. I guess my granddaughters (who are only about ten months old as I write this, aren't all that interested in looking at each other yet, and couldn't verbalize their feelings if they wanted to) will be able to tell me how that feels someday. But it seems like it would be quite strange--you know, seeing a mirror image of yourself--for someone who wasn't born a twin.
I'm a little skeptical about this so-called doppelganger. Perhaps our friend was just spinning yarns.
But I want to see her!
What about you? Has anyone ever told you that you have a doppelganger?
(*By the way, this same younger brother was always being told that he looked like Dick Van Dyke's younger brother, Jerry!)
My memory is going, I guess. When my husband read this post, he told me that I'd gotten the story wrong. He reminded me that before we ran into our friend after the 11:00 Mass last week, he'd called and told my husband, "I saw your better half at Mass last Sunday, but I didn't get a chance to talk to her afterward." It wasn't until my husband informed him that we'd been in Atlanta on that particular Sunday that he realized the person he'd seen wasn't me!
ReplyDelete