In The Eyes...

In about four week’s at my girlfriends church they are gonna be talking about the legacy of our fathers. This got me thinking about the stuff that our families do that affect us. I’m not just talking about how they treated us when we were growing up or who we actually got to see. This goes a bit deeper. I’m talking on a microscopic, DNA, generational type of thing.

I chose the picture of my eye as an example. For years I have told people that I have a grey outline in my eyes. What’s funny is that I never tried to figure out why. One day I did and the results were surprising. It turns out that families with a history of high blood pressure has this occur throughout their bloodlines. I don’t have high blood pressure. I was actually told I had low blood pressure when I was around 14 (which has no since been changed to whatever regular ass blood pressure is). But its just funny to me that something that many people in my family had could affect me physically.

I wonder lots of times what other strange things that go on with my body are the result of my family. I know its where I got my feet from (known as “Ross toes”). My mother loves to make fun of the shape of my nose which is from my fathers side of the family. Bad vision runs on each side. My crazy ass fingers come from my late Grandma (man, it’s weird to write that). The straight teeth and height are an oddity though. My family isn’t tall and has a lot of mouth issues. I jacked my teeth up plenty growing up either by having them knocked out or allowing them to rot out. Hell, even the fact that I draw comes from my Grandmama that used to draw (she said her father made her stop as it was “unladylike”), my father, and my late older brother. What the hell else is hiding inside of me?

Besides that kinda stuff there is also the terrible stuff we get from family. This is a good reason to know some of your family history. You don’t want to find out at 45 that most men in your family die at 50 from a disease you kept yourself from knowing because you ignored your entire family. Yeah, I have kept my distance from mine but over the last few years have gotten closer. There are things I need to know. This is one of the reasons why I will be sure to be in church. Physically and mentally there are things I know and things I don’t. Why is alcoholism so strong in my family. How about drug use? Denial? All these things. So now spiritually I need to find out some stuff.

Rockets.