I’ve never been to France, but someone once saw me there.

A friend was looking at a photo of a young man standing in the streets of Paris, wearing a long coat, hair blowing in the wind. “When were you in France?” he asked.

But it wasn’t me. He was looking at a photo of my father, when he’d gone to France as an engineer. We have the same high forehead, the same downward-sloping eyes, the same sharp nose. If not for the age of the photo, it could have been a photograph of me.

My father was born in the year of the tiger. To me, he’s always been one: fierce, self-directed, moving through life in decisive strides. Even now, as age has slowed his pace, I still glimpse the tiger pacing inside him.

His life didn’t unfold the way he’d imagined. There were risks that didn’t pay off, ambitions that narrowed rather than expanded. Still, there’s something in the way he stayed upright through it all – doing whatever it took to keep our family going, insisting on living life on his own terms.

Somewhere in my thirties, my face began to change. It softened. Rounded. The resemblance shifted. I started to see my mother in the mirror.

She was born in the year of the rabbit, and she carries that gentleness. Where my father is forceful, she is giving. She doesn’t announce her love; she shows it. Even now, with her hair fully grey, she insists on cooking whenever we gather.

For years, I saw my parents as giants. It took time to see them as people, capable of great love and tenderness, but also fear and worry. They’ve inspired me, frustrated me, let me down, and cared for me when I couldn’t care for myself. They have loved imperfectly. I’ve tried, imperfectly, to love them back.

My son was born in the year of the tiger, like his grandfather, and in the same month I was born. My daughter was born in the year of the rabbit, like her grandmother, and in the same month as her mother. Their birthdays fall on consecutive days: the eighteenth and the nineteenth. Patterns. Parallels. Unplanned.

When my son runs into the world, eager and unafraid, I see the tiger reflected. When my daughter leans into me, calm and trusting, I feel the rabbit’s warmth all over again.

I look in the mirror and still see the tiger and the rabbit looking back at me. But now, I wonder what someone else might see – years from today, leafing through a photograph and a memory.