Seeing Double: Life with a Family Face

by Angela Sanford

Have you ever been told you have a doppelgänger—a twin, somebody who looks just like you? 

  In my family, I seem to have several. From my mother to my aunts, I’ve heard countless times over the years how much I resemble them. In fact, I’ve even been mistaken for them on more than one occasion—sometimes in ways that weren’t very flattering.

  The first time I was mistaken for my Aunt Carol, I was 18. She would have been in her late 30s or early 40s at the time—not exactly the comparison an 18-year-old wants to hear. I was working at the Lower Selma Museum on a rainy day, with no visitors until a couple finally came through the door. The gentleman creeped me out a little bit because he kept staring at me and I couldn’t imagine why. Just as they were about to leave, he stopped, turned around, and said, “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  I apologized and said I didn’t think we’d ever met. He went on to say that yes, not only had we met but we had actually gone out on a date many years ago. I looked at him and said, “No, I don’t think so.” 

  He insisted, “Well, you’re Carol Hines, aren’t you?”

   I had to laugh, I mean what else could I do? “No,” I said, “but I know exactly who that is.” 

  Since it was Sunday, I knew Aunt Carol would be at Gram and Granddad’s. I stopped by to tell her about the encounter, kindly pointing out that either she looked like a teenager or I looked like a middle-aged woman. Either way, it was a compliment for her—not so much for me!

  A few years later, I was attending my Great-Aunt Alma’s funeral, sitting in a pew at Noel United Church with my mom, Aunt Carol, and Aunt Kaye. As the four of us stood up to leave, someone stopped us and exclaimed how wonderful it was to see the “four sisters together again.” 

  Again, what could I do but laugh? We all had a good laugh. I’d again been mistaken for an aunt, for my Aunt Judy, who is just a couple of years older than my mom. At least this time, I got to be counted as one of the younger sisters, rather than one of the older ones.

 And then, just a few of weeks ago, it happened again. On the last day of school, a colleague and I walked into Robin’s. As I stepped up to the counter to place my order, a lady turned, looked right at me, and said, “My goodness—if I ever saw a Hines, it’s you.”

I laughed and told her I wasn’t a Hines myself, but I understood why she thought so. She asked who my mother was, and when I said “Marcia,” her face lit up. She vividly remembered my mom and all her siblings, spoke fondly of them, and even shared a few stories and I could, in return, share a few with her as I remembered her from my early childhood visits with my grandfather.

  And so it goes—every so often, I catch my reflection in someone else’s memory. Sometimes it’s from the Patterson side but more often than I’m “one of the Hines girls” – I mean even my mother tells me how much I remind her of my cousin Debra Hines…. where does it end?

But no matter who others think I am, it always circles back to family, and I guess there are worse things in this world than carrying a face that reminds people of shared experiences and good memories.