The Same Gene Pool?

I frequently marvel at how different my two sons are.  Extroverted vs. introverted.  Physical vs. verbal.  Structured vs. free flowing.  This weekend one was shoveling mulch into garden beds, for a neighbor, for 7 and 8 hours a day and the other was creating a blog focusing on book reviews. They were born to the same parents, less than two years apart, and have lived in the same environment, and attended the same schools their whole lives. 

Sibling differences are also on my mind because all of my siblings have come to visit me this week.  The variety of twists and turns our lives have taken also provides some serious contrasts in our personalities and life styles.  The age span among us is such that I was sometimes mistaken as a teen mom when my youngest sister was born.  My family moved every 2-3 years for the bulk of my childhood, middle siblings know only three homes instead of my six and younger siblings were raised in multiple homes and with different parental arrangements.  The mystery for us is how it is that we could still be so much alike. It goes beyond the facial features or shared jokes.  There is a sensibility, a common reality that was endured/experienced even though many parts of our childhood were not the same.

View towards Michigan City from Mt. Baldy, Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We are about to leave and meet up with another brother who currently lives near our old haunts.  We are about to intentionally revisit the old homes that we lived in and some of the "favorite memories".  When we started creating the list of things that we wanted to share together, I was amazed at how unusual the list was.  Broasted chicken from the deli at the local grocery or dinner at the steakhouse chain that we hated and where three of the five of us had high school jobs. It was the only restaurant that we ever went to as a family because on our birthdays you could eat free (if you worked there) and your guests could eat half off.  The perfect meal plan for a family of 7 + 2 foster kids.  A trip to a local park that had a real tank that we would climb on like a jungle gym also made the list.  Our favorite thing and the one that we all mentioned was going on a trip to Mt. Baldy at the Indiana Dunes.

I warned my sibs that Mt. Baldy is in the midst of serious erosion problems.  The dune is literally swallowing up the forest at it's base and changing it's own form.  I'm sure that when we arrive there later today it will be like meeting and spending time with each other.  Different and yet so very familiar.