The People We Meet

Yesterday Marcus and I took our weekly trip to the grocery store. Marcus must have been as excited about the fabulous weather as the rest of the population because he was jumping for joy - literally. Marcus bounces. He loves to bounce. He has loved to bounce since the day I met him and he is showing no sign of letting up on this activity. I don't even quite know how he was doing it but as we went through the store selecting items on our list, he was bouncing up and down in the cart. He would only rest long enough to laugh with that goofy smile of his showing or to blow some raspberries in my face. (No one told me that motherhood involved the need to have my face covered with my child's saliva constantly.) Several people in the store stopped to say how cute he was or how happy it made them to see a child so happy. Some people just looked at him and smiled. When we finally made it to the register the cashier started small talk, asking about Marcus and telling me how cute he is. (People do this all the time, as if I didn't notice!) There was an older gentleman bagging my groceries. I have seen him several times, almost every time I go shopping there. He is a very sweet guy, at least from my limited knowledge of him. Yesterday was different though. Yesterday he told me that Marcus looked like his grandson. I asked him how old his grandson was (just turned 1 year old) as I thought to myself that there was no way that this pale-skinned, light-eyed man had a grandson that looked like Marcus. In between bagging up my canned goods and my cold items, this man pulled out his wallet and opened to a photo of his grandson. I could not believe what I was seeing! This little boy in the photo could have been Marcus's brother! They both had full heads of black hair, round faces, and those huge dark eyes that just suck you in. About the only difference I noticed was that their eye shape was slightly different. I wanted so much to ask some questions, to find out if this little boy was from Guatemala as well, but I just couldn't bring myself to say something that could be taken the wrong way. Also, I was too busy kicking myself for being so ignorant. You would think that I - having a transracial family and being well aware that families are made of people who love each other and not necessarily people who look like each other - wouldn't have been so quick to draw the conclusion that this man in the grocery store couldn't possibly have a grandson that looked like Marcus. I stand corrected! Lesson learned!