I’ve been thinking a lot about family these past few days. Walking into my grandma’s home in Ithaca, New York, I was reminded, again, about how much a family shares. My grandma keeps everyone’s baby and childhood pictures throughout her house, and I couldn’t help but notice just how similar we all are. I found myself entranced by the shelves and shelves of pictures and the book of family genealogy. I especially loved scanning the family tree and watching familiar names repeat themselves, seeing how a favorite aunt’s name is given to a new baby, forgotten for a generation or two, and then, given to another baby girl who has a son who has a daughter who dreams about naming her baby that same name. And so on and so on…

When I was extremely little, people used to tell me that my cousin and I looked like twins, and as I’ve aged, I’ve been told I look just like my aunt. My dad has accidentally called me by his sister’s name, and I’ve heard that she looks like she could be my mother. I’ve always wondered what it is that makes us all look so similar. What makes our tree’s limbs blur together in a confusing tangle of family?

I’ve decided that I see my family in our eyes. We have large eyes on both sides of my family, a majority of us have blue, but there are exceptions, including yours truly, who have green, brown, or some mixture of all three. Regardless of the color, there is a twinkle in everyone’s eyes that I can’t help but recognize as a family brand. Those are our eyes. The life that I see in everyone’s eyes is similar. We’ve come from a similar history, and we’ve known similar people. It’s comforting to see the same eyes looking back at me.

My grandpa is a brilliant man. He was a math professor at Cornell, and I can remember calling him on the phone for middle school math help and getting lost in his complicated explanations. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at least a decade ago, and to be honest, I don’t remember him pre diagnosis. Life gets busy, and it’s been years between this trip and the last. I didn’t realize how much the Parkinson’s would affect my grandpa. It’s been difficult to see him, this brilliant math magician trapped by his disorder. When I first saw him, I was afraid that everything had been affected. I was afraid my grandpa was lost in his own mind. Physically, he moves in constant slow motion. He needs help doing almost everything, even though I know he wants to be independent again.

It was a shock to me when I spoke to him for the first time and had trouble understanding him. I felt this need to keep smiling through the awkward silences and miscommunication. By day two, I realized something very important. I walked into the kitchen and saw him sitting in a chair, eating french toast, and watching sports on tv. He ate slowly, but he insisted on doing it all by himself. When I stopped to say good morning, he looked up at me with those “family” eyes. His are round and hazel, and they have the same exact twinkle and life in them that I see in all of my family members. Immediately upon seeing those eyes, I knew my grandpa was there, trapped in a slow body with a mind as quick as ever. I can’t begin to understand how it must feel to understand everything and have trouble responding, to have a brilliant mind and little control over responses and reactions. My heart aches when I think about how it must feel to lose the ability to reach out and pull somebody into a hug, but when I see his eyes shine when he’s fiddling with his camera or listening to us talk, it feels like a hug. He lights up like a Christmas tree sometimes, and I swear that seeing that feels better than any hug could.

Maybe it’s because I was born, looking into these “family” eyes. Maybe the spark I see in their eyes is a way that I visualize my feelings for my family members. Regardless, I see that connection in all of them, no matter how they came to be a part of our messy, tangled tree. I see it in the old and the young, those I see every day and those I see once a year. That’s how I know that my grandpa is and always will be there. His eyes are eyes I can’t forget. They’re memorable and mischievous. They automatically make me smile, and even in Parkinson’s hopeless situation, they do give me hope. They give me hope that even in the most difficult situations, there can be laughter and joy.