Flesh of my flesh, cell of my cell

I wrote these fragments this afternoon, just before reading this article in the Globe & Mail:

There are memories, souvenirs, markings emblazoned on our lives, on our souls, and on our bodies. And I have been surprised to see my memories and my ancestors memories etched onto my children's small, innocent limbs and faces. Solanne has the chin of a person she has never met. The origin of this small, pointy chin is a mystery to me. Two of my father's sisters and at least one of my cousins have inherited it. Was it my grandmother's? Did it belong to some far off grandparent, whose face was never recorded on film or canvas? Maïa receives many compliments on her hair - a mane she inherited from her father, whose genes were carried over from his own mother.

My own body carries memories that have long been blown into the wind, ashes scattered, dust to dust. I have my father's eyes, those eyes that I didn't know were his until I visited with his family, in the "old country" as a young adult. I saw his eyes in all their faces: the deep twinkling, yet strangely sad eyes that slope down in the outside corners. And I was told by each of them that I had his eyes, that I was his spitting image.

I have my mother's hands, those small, strongish fingers that will one day begin to bend in ways they shouldn't. My grandmother had those hands; I can still remember her working away, seemingly impossibly fast at her baking, her sewing, her knitting. Her hands were agile and quick, even if they betrayed her at times.

I have other parts that are a mystery to me. Whose lips are these? Which ancestor wore lips like these, to take stolen kisses and dispense love to her children? To speak an unknown language (Italian? French? Scottish?), to speak words of encouragement and suffering? To whistle a tune while he worked... at what? What untold stories lie beneath the tiny packets of DNA that were carried all this way in my parents' bodies, in the secret of their cells, to come fulfilled in this tiny prophecy that is my body?

I guess there was more to the story of carrying genes and cells than I had imagined...