How Harrison Ford became my grandpa

I'm not sure when I first noticed the resemblance. Possibly as early as 2013 when the Ender's Game movie came out, but it was probably around 2015, when all the Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens hoopla was happening. Harrison Ford was all over the place, in all his silver-haired glory.

In fact, it was the silver hair that finally clued me in to something I hadn't seen before: this man looked an awful lot like my grandpa.

It's true. All of it.

I mentioned the uncanny resemblance to my dad, and he agreed, saying, "He looks a lot like Grandpa Rushton." From his tone, I gathered that he had made this connection decades ago, but I was still reeling somewhat from the realization that one of Hollywood's most recognizable actors looked like someone in my own family. (An uncle and at least one cousin also got the Harrison Ford gene, so his legacy lives on in the Rushton line.) 

The resemblance only grows as Harrison Ford (80) approaches the age my grandpa was when he died (84). This week, I started watching Shrinking on Apple TV, which has been a bizarre experience. My sharpest memories of Grandpa Rushton are from the end of his life, so watching current-day Harrison Ford onscreen is like watching my grandpa live an alternate life, one where he still has Parkinson's but is spared Alzheimer's, and is a therapist into his old age.

What Harrison Ford looks like now.

What Grandpa Rushton looked like then.

Now, you might be thinking that there's some resemblance there. The white hair, obviously. The sort of crooked smile. The similar jaw structure. But it's not like they're identical. 

But that's the funny thing about memory. Our memories change over time, and if you go long enough without seeing someone, you might start thinking you have a special connection to some guy you've never met, simply because he reminds you of someone you've lost.

Malcolm Gladwell did a Revisionist History episode about memory once. He used 9/11, an event everyone over the age of 25 remembers, to illustrate how our memories aren't as reliable as we think they are. 

Researchers conducted surveys of what people remembered about the 9/11 attacks. They compiled their first set of answers a week after the attacks, then again a year after, three years after, and 10 years after. And while people were confident that their memories of that day were accurate, the data told a different story. Often, the accounts from the first week were different from accounts documented years later.

I've seen this phenomena play out in my life. My brother said for years that he got in his infamous bike accident on 9/11. He crashed his bike, the road scuffed up his face, our neighbor rescued him, and then he drank bean and bacon soup through a straw until the swelling in his bottom lip went down.

His telling never seemed quite right to me though, so I dug out my journal from that day and had one of my very first "Well, actually" moments. Because I documented this traumatic event the day it happened, I captured important details my brother hadn't retained—like the date. It was the following Tuesday, September 18, not September 11. He probably just saw the Two Towers news coverage on TV at our neighbor's house and merged the two events together.

Grandpa Rushton died when I was 18, and I don't remember a whole lot from before he had Alzheimer's. Still, he's a solid presence in a lot of memories of Christmas parties, 4th of July gatherings, and softball games (he had an umbrella hat!).

But sometimes I think I might be merging my memories of Grandpa Rushton with his real-life doppelgänger. Was Grandpa actually a crusty old guy, or do I only think that because some guy who looks like him often plays the crusty old guy on TV? Did Grandpa Rushton actually have a crooked smile, or is Harrison Ford's smile just filling in the holes in my memory? Was Grandpa Rushton really the kind of person who makes snarky comments, or do I just think that because I've seen Harrison Ford make snarky comments in interviews?

It can be hard to separate the two, but I think I've come to a compromise. I have four grandpas now, not three. Grandpa Rushton, Grandpa Jackson, Grandpa Bill . . . and Harrison Ford.