When the Mirror Knows Too Much

Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see him.

Not just the shape of my face or the arch of my brow—

I see echoes.

I see history.

And sometimes, that history aches.

He used to say,

"If you want to know what I look like without a beard, look at my daughter."

It was a joke, but it stuck like truth.

Sometimes when I speak, I hear him.

A certain stillness. A withdrawal. A silence that folds in on itself.

It’s jarring—how someone absent can still show up in your body.

In your tone. In the way you pause too long before saying what you mean.

It’s been twelve years since we’ve spoken.

Twelve years since I drew a boundary meant to protect, but also severed.

And still—he finds his way in.

Through my reflection.

Through my reactions.

Through the fear that maybe, after all this work, I’m still becoming him.

But I’ve also learned this:

I am not only the things I’ve come from.

I am not a shadow of someone else's pain.

I am not the unfinished sentence of someone else’s story.

I’ve chosen whose image I bear—and it isn’t his.

It’s God’s.

Yes, I carry traces of him.

His quiet confidence. His hunger to do something meaningful. His ache to be loved well.

And those parts… I no longer shame.

They are human. Complex. Real.

But they don’t define me.

They don’t get to name me.

Because I’ve chosen a different way.

To raise my children from presence, not absence.

To speak, even when silence feels safer.

To forgive, even if reconciliation never comes.

Still, some days I wrestle.

I wonder if I’ve failed the faith I teach.

If setting boundaries means I’m not living grace.

If protecting myself means I’ve abandoned forgiveness.

But I’ve come to believe that both can be true.

I can love and grieve.

I can honor and release.

I can reflect and resist.

Mirrors don’t lie—but they don’t tell the whole truth either.

They capture the outside.

But God sees the becoming.

And so I return to this:

I am not a copy. I am a creation.

And I don’t have to become what broke me.

I get to become new.