I am a spitting image of my father. Everybody tells me I am. They say, "You have the same nose, the same eyes, the same face." I nod along but secretly think "My dad is a spitfire. He's a workaholic. He's a distant, angry man." In my innermost thoughts, I shake my head vigorously, refusing to believe I am the same as him.

But sometimes when I'm on my own, I look at myself in the mirror for hours and see him in the reflection. He smiles back at me and I realize, I'm a spitfire too- I have poison in my tongue. But I don't have a heart like my father. He carries so much goodness in his that it seems unsual. I often find myself wishing I had taken after him on that matter too. Still I mutter angrily, "But he's cold. He's got no love ... for me."

I tell myself I'm too mad at my father to love him but I soften everytime I see him with his nose buried in a book. He's often too engrossed to notice his surroundings, notice anyone talking to him, even if they're as loud as a thunderbolt. When I catch him at these fleeting moments, I think to myself how lucky I am to share the same hobbies as him, to shape my thoughts with his hand-me-downs.

Often I look in my father's direction, and loudly declare, "He's got anger stored in his big nose that I hate to have inherited." Through his big nose, his anger, and him always having bigger fishes to fry, somehow it has taken me all these years, a little too long, to realize that I secretly wish I had taken after him in more ways than just some.

I wish I had his intelligence, his zeal, his tenacity, his hopefulness, his honesty, his heart of gold.

I am a spitting image of my father, and I guess a couple vices aren't all that bad to inherit after all.