The Guy in the Mirror

     

This is an article that was printed in the Shepherd Flock Family Newsletter, December 2001, (17 years ago!) It’s a message written by James D. Shepherd, your dad and grandpa! These newsletters (1984-2008) have all been scanned, along with many other family stories in the Shepherd-Millar family history files that will be coming your way in the near future. We had hoped for a Christmas delivery to you, however, there was way too much information to get it done in that time frame. Enjoy getting to know your dad and grandpa a little better with this fun and long-ago entry! CAS

     Not long ago I looked in the bathroom mirror and reflected at the image the mirror was showing me. I was startled as I stood there staring at the face looking back at me. It was my dad! All I could think in that very moment was— “I’ve turned into my dad!” I was not ready for this experience. Not only did I look like my dad, I looked as old as I can remember my dad in his latter years. What’s goin’ on here; I’m not so sure I want to see that face in the mirror—not yet, anyway!

     Like most kids, when I was young, I would have given anything—anything to look older. I was a young kid with a very skinny body. I begged silently every year when I blew out all the candles on my birthday cake to be able to look into a mirror and see a man looking back. A “studly” man! By the time I was a teenager, none of the birthday wishes had come true. I was still skinny—now tall and skinny. I changed my name from Jimmy to James, let my hair grow out a little bit from a flat top butch to combing it back to get the “James Dean look.” Planting myself before the small mirror over the sink, I combed my hair just like Dean, trying to capture his sexy, mysterious look.

     As an adult I must have continued to stare at myself in mirrors along the way. Any place would do—in the barracks while serving in the U.S. Air Force, my first date with my wife-to-be, and then seeing my wife across the altar of the temple on our wedding day. Then there was our first apartment in college and our first little home as we started a family. By then, my relationship with my image had changed. I wasn’t hoping to someone else in the mirror. I enjoyed looking at myself as I was at those moments. Somewhere along the way, my birthday wish did come true; somewhere along the way my body had to have just the right look. “Hi there,” I’d say to my reflection, “Nice to know you!”

     When I look in the mirror now, another figure appears. I see a man whose hair has turned gray. And, it’s also growing thin. There are many more wrinkles reflected and even a double chin. I keep telling myself, “He looks good for his age.” I am forever telling him to stand up straight.

     The man is me; he’s also not me. He’s like the Matriska, those hollow Russian wooden dolls that Natalie brought back from her mission, with all the earlier “me’s” inside and fitted inside one another!

     Recently, at the end of last summer, I watched some our grandkids dart into a beautiful lush green mountain forest with great excitement. The kids were having a blast—skipping rocks, forging a creek, following a trail to see where it would lead. As I watched and listed to echoes of their excitement and laughter, thoughts of when I was a kid rushed through my mind. Oh, how I loved the mountains as a kid. I knew what it was like for them, the grandkids. Sometimes I can see that little boy in me. Other times I catch a glimpse of a young man wanting to have more meat on his bones—to be a hunk, wondering if there will ever be a first date. Still other times, I am looking back at our little girls playing on the beach, and then catching a glimpse of their trying on wedding dresses. Not long after, it’s watching two little guys in soccer shirts making “headers” and the scout camps with all the merit badges. Then it’s sending a daughter to a mission to Russia. Occasionally I see a picture of my dad, for how I look now, is something like how he appeared in my memories of my childhood.

      I know that all these selves are inside me. Yet the rest of the world, especially my grandkids see only a Grandpa-looking old guy; someone who probably remembers Chubby Checkers and Little Richard and thinks that earring belong on ears rather than eyebrows. Sometimes I want to say to the tired thirty-somethings pushing strollers down the street, “Hey, even though I could be your father, I’m you, too. I know how it feels to be wiped out taking care of kids, to wonder how I’ll survive until nap time, to just go to the movies or ball game, any ball game, without a diaper bag and a bottle and a kid in tow.”

     I want to say to the boy with a back-pack, “Yo, I’m not just an old man with gray hair; I’m a boy just like you. I know what it’s like to want to be bigger and older!”

     Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and think about dying my hair. Then I remember why I don’t. For years, I have assumed that if I went gray, I would become invisible. But then, I began noticing that people who had gray hair weren’t invisible to me. In fact, they seemed increasingly interesting. If I dyed my hair or had a face-lift, I would be making myself invisible to the very people I wanted to have see me.

     No doubt it would be mature to say that I wouldn’t want to be young again—that once was enough. That’s what most of my friends say. Not me! If I could turn back the clock, I would. But life is too full to spend time wishing for what I can’t have. Even if no one else can see it, I’m enjoying being a little boy, a young father, a forty-something space planner, a golden-oldie security guard, and at least a dozen other people rolled into one. Most of all, I enjoy being a “has-been kid”, a husband, a dad, and especially a Grandpa! 
       Love, Your Dad and Grandpa, Jim Shepherd, Written December 2001, (65 years old)

     Update: Nowadays, I don’t try to look at that guy in the mirror anymore. When I do on occasion, I think, “Who are you? You’re not your dad anymore because you’re older than he was!” I lean a little closer to the mirror and recognize that guy looking back at me. “Hi Jim, Grandpa Jim; this is you now, you old goat!”

     Gone are the days I paid grandkids a gold dollar coin when they made a basket. Gone are the dance recitals, choir programs, cheer-leading, and sports events, (except for Brian’s kids who are still in the thick of it!). It’s all fading fast. “Isla, you’re up next. My clock is ticking!” I’m over the hill now. I thought when you’re over the hill, it would all be downhill. Not so! I think about the here-after a lot nowadays. Then I go in another room and think, “What am I here after?!” 😊

     So, to the guy in the mirror, I say— “Ahh, you old Cougar! Keep on growling, ole’ boy!”

                                                                                         Jim Shepherd, 12-3-18, (81 years old)