People keep telling me all the time that I look and act just like my father. "Hey," the keep saying, "that's exactly what your father used to do!" Mostly my family, but I can also see it in the eyes of my relatives and friends, how they react. I do not know what it is, but I have heard this more than a dozen times now. Perhaps it is the way I slurp my instant Nescafe, my loud and grumpy voice, the occasional huffing and puffing sounds, the way I sit reclined next to the swimming pool, certain things I say (eg. "I guess I'll have a bite now to tide me over"), my balding scalp (and how it is peeling badly after getting sun-burned), or whatever. To be honest, I do not like to be compared with someone else, even if it is my father. The fact that he has passed away makes it more sensitive for me, but at the same time I can understand the psychological patterns which family members share when they confirm these so-called similarities. Alright, I am who I am, I am me, no matter what. But that does not change the fact that it was my father who gave me half of my life. Similarities remain no matter what, and it is interesting as well as insightful. Not only for the others but for myself also.
I am honored when someone compares me to my father. (of course I'm female here...) but my father is the center of my existence, and I love him with all my heart. And I'm sure after he passes on that I will feel the same way, that by being compared to or refenced in regards to him I will somehow be keeping part of his essence alive.
You might want to realize that some people are yearning to remember your father and the idea that they feel that they can capture a glimpse of him by looking at you helps them remember him. I understand the need to be a person of your own mind and body, but I think that there is something that those people are looking for. Someday, people will look at Lennart or Maarten and will tell them that "your father did that."
I never thought that people would be seeing my father through me because of a natural yearning to have him and/or his characteristics shining from my own actions. That is an interesting point, Stu. They probably also said that about my dad when he was younger, that indeed he did things and/or looked like his father, and that my dad's father, ad infinitum into the past. Maybe even there are some unique expressions I make that mimic exactly those of my great great great great grandfather. Could be.