A Pacific treefrog darts through the swampy underbrush of its forestland. Hopping over jagged rocks, narrowly avoiding protruding sticks, and wading through crowds of resident mosquitoes, the frog frantically scatters from its impending doom, for a garter snake approaches. Suddenly, it halts. In mere seconds, pigment cells below the frog’s skin reflect distinct wavelengths of light, replicating the coloring of its surroundings, and allowing it to camouflage itself from the newly outwitted serpent. To the extrinsic world, the frog has disappeared.

For a time, I was jealous of the Pacific treefrog. I envied the amphibian not for its ear-piercing, boisterous croak or for its intimidating five-centimeter length, but for its deftness in transforming its exterior into whatever it wanted to be.

In the years following my father’s death, I wanted nothing more than to conjure up a world in which I wasn’t incessantly reminded of him. Our shyish blue eyes deepened by monochromatic flakes of gray; our wavy dirty- blonde hair, unstable in shifty climates, but domesticized by the almighty hair pomade; our slender – and somewhat imposing – nose. When I looked into a mirror, my father stared back at me. With a glimpse into my eyes, I could feel my body jerk backwards. Elbows colliding with the hardened plastic of my Graco booster seat as my mother peeled out of our driveway, my father savagely sprinting towards our fleeing minivan, shouting in an intoxicated stupor. With a look at my nose, I could smell the fruity aroma of dozens of bottles of cherry brandy strewn about the cabin of his airless truck as I wedged my husky frame through its rear window, searching for the culprit of my daddy’s sudden change in temperament.

As I wrestled with the solemnity of my father’s death, my mind was attuned to one fear: becoming him. That any time alcohol was in my vicinity, I would feel the allure that had indelibly dominated his thinking. That when I had a family, my inebriated actions would destroy it, just as my father’s had done to his. That every time conflict arose, I would react with the same impetuous violence that drove my sister and I into huddled backyard whispers of “is Mommy okay?”

On what would have been my father’s forty-sixth birthday, as I searched the Hartford Courant’s memoriam section for his portrait, my mother turned to face me. “You’re going to make him so proud,” she said. As her words resonated within me, a sense of newfound purpose slowly replaced the burdensome presence of self-doubt. I came to realize the importance of being my own person, a person who possesses the strength to make right the aspects of my life that he made so wrong. I strove to become the superlative version of my father, learning from his missteps, and making my life better for them.

Galvanized by my father’s influence, looking into a mirror gradually became an undemanding task. Now, when I find myself before one, I fantasize of wavy dirty blonde hair greyed by decades of fervent devotion and exacting effort, blue eyes widened by the prospects of a successful and benevolent career, and a nose made even more prominent by the love and constancy of my family. I see a life lived free of burdens that were never my own. I know, unequivocally, that I am the sole proprietor of my future, a place that I have the dominion to create, and a place where I long to be. I will not be my father. I will be so much more.

To the Pacific treefrog I say: true character lies not in what can be seen by the naked eye, but in our willingness to persevere through grievous circumstances and become more self-aware because of them. So cast aside your cryptic sheathing and learn to commend your authentic self. Unless, of course, a garter snake is in tow.