A Dead Ringer is a Doppelganger is a Twin

A Double Take on a Memory

Like me, I’m sure you know the term ‘dead ringer’.  I’ve also heard it called a ‘doppelganger’. Both mean someone who looks like someone we know, or even love.  Not long ago, I had my first experience with the phenomenon.

Robert and I moved to Florida a couple of months after my father passed away. I was very close to my dad and I often thought of the many conversations I had with him about our upcoming move to Florida.

Daddy was all for it.  He even planned to come down and stay for a week, (or a month, or forever, he teased). I missed him terribly, but I knew we had his blessing for our big move from Muk Luk winters in Pennsylvania to barefoot days year-round in Florida.  I remember how he laughed when I said I was moving so I could go barefoot every day of the year.

One morning a few weeks after our move, I took our golf cart, ‘Lucy’, to do some errands. I went to Publix for a few groceries, picked up a couple of things in the hardware store, and finally to my last stop at CVS for vitamins.

As I headed to the checkout counter and got in line, my tidy world oddly flip-flopped, taking my breath away. For a split second, I was convinced the man in front of me was Daddy. How could that be? I asked myself in disbelief.  My heart wrestled with my eyes, both vying for the truth.

The man had the same build, the same thinning hair, the same clothes, and he was sitting on a red motorized Jazzy scooter just like the one my father had because of his painful knees and ankles. 

When he reached up to the counter to swipe his credit card in the machine, I even saw my father's hand. My eyes filled with tears.

Then he turned to look at the cashier and I could see his face. No, this was not Daddy. As much as I wanted it to be him, he was just another kind elderly man on a Jazzy motorized red scooter in the CVS drug store.

I wiped my eyes with a tissue and took several deep breaths. That's the way life works sometimes. When you least expect it, something will trigger a memory to come screaming out at you. It tugs at your heart, but it also brings a loved one close just one more time, like a gift to help us heal.

I wonder, would he have been upset, had I asked him for a hug?

Published Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
Quora Top Writer 2018
CJ’s World is a reader-supported publication.
If you enjoy reading my work, please
consider a paid subscription. Thank you.